AMERICAN     TRACT        SOCIETY 
NEW  YORK? 


COPYRIGHT,    1903 

BY 
AMERICAN   TRACT   SOCIETY 


CONTENTS 


PAGE. 

FOREWORD 5 

I.  THE  JOYFUL  LIFE 7 

II.  MOULDING  INFLUENCES 23 

III.  THE  CHRISTIAN  WOMAN'S  OPPOR- 

TUNITY       41 

IV.  THE  VACATION  MONTH 59 

V.  NEARNESS  TO  GOD 79 

VI.  CHRISTMAS  HOLLY 97 

VII.  LIFE'S  UPS  AND  DOWNS 113 

VIII.  A  NEW  YEAR  MEDITATION 131 

IX.  INCOMPATIBILITY 149 

X.  AFTER-EASTER  MUSINGS 167 

XI.  WHEN  MOTHER  Is  BLUE  . .  .   183 


XII.  REVERENCE  , 


201 


jforeworb. 


EACH  chapter  of  this  book  is 
a  simple  and  friendly  talk 
on  some  theme  of  homely 
interest,  and  the  author's  aim  has 
been  to  suggest  something  helpful 
in  each  as  to   life  and  conduct. 
We   are    all  wayfarers,   and  our 
manners  on  the  road  have  much 
to   do  with   our    happiness    and 
usefulness. 

As  a  rule  the  pilgrim  who  walks 
lightly  encumbered  with  luggage 
is  least  weary  at  the  end  of  the  day, 
and  therefore  the  aim  has  been  to 
inculcate  care  for  the  realities  and 
5 


:-"' 


to  let  the  superfluities  go.  Most 
of  the  impedimenta  with  which  we 
weight  ourselves  here  will  be  for- 
gotten when  we  cross  the  river  and 
enter  the  Father's  house.  Some 
things  we  shall  carry  over — our 
love  to  Christ  and  to  each  other, 
our  share  of  the  peace  that  pass- 
eth  understanding,  our  desire  to 
do  his  will  and  to  bear  his  image— 
for  it  is  written  that  in  the  Jeru- 
salem that  is  above,  "His  servants 
shall  serve  him." 

It  is  the  writer's  hope  that  every 
word  she  sends  forth  may  find  a 
lodgment  in  some  sympathetic 
heart,  and  that  each  reader  may 
be  her  friend.  As  friends  together 
we  may  talk  of  the  common 
experiences  which,  when  love 
touches  them,  wear  hues  of  im- 
mortality. 

MARGARET    E.    SANGSTER. 
6 


IN  summer  time  we  hear  every- 
where in  nature  the  note  of 
joy.     Brightness   and  vivid- 
ness of  color  are  seen  in  flower  and 
leaf,  forest  aisles  are  sweet  with 
bloom,    gardens    renewing    their 
beauty,  orchards  dressed  in  em- 
broidery and  fretwork  of  blossoms, 
birds  on  the  wing,  and  song  re- 
sounding.    The  outgoings  of  the 
morning  and  evening  rejoice.    The 
winds,  soft  as  zephyrs  or  tumul- 
tuous with  sudden  tempest,  still  are 
7 


attuned  to  the  one  exulting  chord 
and  Nature  lifts  up  her  praise  to 
the  Creator  whose  hand  ordains 
her  seasons  and  guides  them  in 
their  course. 

How  is  it  hi  that  other  more 
ultimate  realm,  where  the  spiritual 
life  flourishes?  Here,  too,  yet  not 
only  now,  there  should  be  glad- 
ness. The  joy  of  the  Lord  is  your 
strength,  ye  who  trust  in  the  Lord 
may  declare;  the  firmament  for 
you  is  starred  with  lights  that  no 
darkness  can  dim,  and — 

"The  voice  that  rolls  the  stars  along 
Speaks  all  the  promises." 

In  our  busy  days  and  hurrying 
tasks  some  of  us  forget  that  we 
may  be  busy  and  still  blessed;  toil 
strenuously,  and  yet  wear  singing 
robes.  Christians  of  a  former  and 
8 


Ube  Joyful  Xffe, 


more  introspective  period  than 
ours  were  wont  to  talk  much  of 
assurance,  to  long  for  and  prize  it, 
to  lament  its  lack  in  their  con- 
sciousness, and  to  cry  out  for  it 
earnestly  in  their  hours  of  prayer. 
In  an  age  when  we  are  losing  the 
deep  sense  of  the  fear  of  God  from 
individual  and  family  life  we  hear 
little  about  assurance,  and  there 
is  some  danger  that  Christians  are 
ceasing  to  cherish  what  is  in  truth 
then-  very  highest  privilege  and 
their  chief  distinction.  Assurance 
of  our  right  to  claim  kinship  with 
the  Elder  Brother,  a  sweet,  full, 
never-ceasing  awareness  that  we 
belong  to  the  Divine  Father,  is 
the  inheritance  by  right  of  all  who 
are  Christ's  and  who  live  by  faith 
in  the  Son  of  God.  No  one  can 
9 


TTbe 


%ife. 


have  this  confidence  of  acceptance, 
this  security  of  communion,  this 
feeling  of  the  child  at  home  in  the 
Father's  house,  and  not  know  often 
the  thrill  of  an  ecstasy  surpassing 
earthly  pleasure;  the  steadfast  joy 
of  a  soul  at  peace  beyond  all  per- 
turbation and  strife. 

We  look  for  a  heaven  of  joy, 
dear  friends,  a  heaven  where  there 
shall  be  no  terror  of  a  parting  from 
our  loved  ones,  no  grief,  no  sin. 
There  the  redeemed  shall  walk  in 
white ;  there  the  anthem  is  forever 
rising,  the  harp  notes  forever  ring. 
Angels  and  saints,  the  vast  kin- 
dreds of  the  cycles  past  and  to 
come,  the  innumerable  company 
of  the  redeemed,  shall  dwell  there 
in  a  bliss  that  shall  never  be 
broken. 

10 


"O  Paradise,  O  Paradise, 

Who  doth  not  crave  for  rest, 
Who  would  not  seek  the  happy  land 

Where  they  that  loved  are  blest. 
Where  loyal  hearts  and  true, 

Stand  ever  in  the  light, 
All  rapture,  through  and  through, 

In  God's  most  holy  sight?  " 

But  we  need  not  wait  for  heaven 
till  we  drop  the  garments  of  our 
flesh.  To  the  disciple  heaven  may 
begin,  and  may  continue  all  the 
way  along,  for  has  not  Jesus  said, 
"I  am  the  way,"  and  is  there  any 
heaven  comparable  to  abiding 
with  Jesus?  What  matter  a  few 
passing  trials,  a  few  rough  stones, 
a  few  tears  and  struggles,  if  we  are 
faring  onward  with  Christ  and 
every  step  is  homeward,  and  home 
is  spreading  its  tabernacle  over  us 
by  night  and  providing  our  re- 
freshment by  day. 
11 


Ube  Sopful  Xife. 


When  I  met  my  friend,  who  had 
lately  heard  of  the  death  of  a  dear 
daughter  in  a  distant  land,  a  loss 
unexpected,  and  leaving  her  deso- 
late, her  look  was  not  cast  down, 
nor  was  her  countenance  sad. 
There  was  in  her  expression  some- 
thing chastened,  something  aloof 
from  the  common  experience, 
something  elevated,  as  if  she  had 
drawn  very  close  to  the  home 
within  the  veil.  A  rare  illumina- 
tion from  the  tranquil  acceptance 
of  God's  will  and  the  unshaken 
repose  in  his  goodness  which 
belongs  to  those  who  never  doubt 
nor  protest  nor  gird  against  the 
arbitrament  of  the  Father,  was 
in  her  face.  "Can  I  be  other 
than  joyful,"  she  said,  "in  the 
joy  that  God  gives  me  when  he 
12 


^— 4     \ 

m 


ttbe  -Joyful  Xife. 


stoops   to    take    my 
himself?" 

This  joy  may  be  ours,  too,  in 
times  of  illness  and  languor.  I 
have  no  sympathy  with  that  cult 
which  denies  that  illness  and  lan- 
guor are  possible,  which  illogically 
tells  us  that  matter  has  no  exist- 
ence, and  which  denies  the  discip- 
linary process  of  pain.  Not  that 
our  Lord  cannot  heal,  and  does  not 
heal,  our  sicknesses  every  day. 
"The  healing  of  his  seamless  dress 
is  by  our  beds  of  pain"  always. 
He  is  always  coming  to  us  when 
we  need  him  with  the  gentle  com- 
mand, "  Daughter,  son,  I  say  unto 
thee,  arise!"  But  he  has  many  a 
method  for  refining  and  purifying 
his  own,  and  every  good  physician, 
and  every  adequate  remedy,  and 
13 


every  hospital  room  and  surgical 
tool  and  modern  appliance,  every 
ingenuity  of  skill  and  science,  each 
and  all  are  his;  ours  to  use  as  he 
permits,  with  gratitude  to  him  that 
he  gives  what  he  gives.  So  we 
may  bear  the  little  prick  and  the 
sharp  pang,  the  fever  heat,  the 
racking  torment,  the  exhaustion 
and  the  distress,  when  he  sends 
any  of  them,  with  something  more 
than  mere  passivity,  with  real  joy. 
And  which  of  us  has  not  known 
invalids,  shut  in  from  the  world 
and  ensphered  in  a  grace  that  the 
world  can  no  more  take  away  than 
it  can  bestow? 

The  Christian's  joy  is  consistent 

with  very  narrow  circumstances. 

I  have  often  heard  people  exclaim 

against  the  hampering  of  environ- 

14 


ment.  Others  can  go  here  or 
there.  Others  can  give  large  sums 
to  missions  or  to  charity.  Others 
can  have  the  satisfactions  that 
accrue  from  wide  advantages,  from 
generous  living,  from  contact  with 
the  best  in  art  and  literature.  One 
would  fancy  to  hear  these  victims 
of  discontent  that  there  were  no 
museums,  no  galleries,  no  libra- 
ries; that  only  the  rich  could  enjoy 
these  treasure  stores  of  intellect 
and  achievement,  whereas  they 
are  by  no  means  the  monopoly  of 
wealth.  The  poorest,  who  desire, 
may  enjoy  much  that  has  been 
gathered  and  catalogued  and  con- 
served, and  placed  under  proper 
care  and  guardianship  for  the 
education  of  the  many,  not  for 
the  gratification  of  the  few.  And 
15 


nature  is  as  lavish  of  her  displays; 
her  open  fields  and  lofty  spaces  and 
acreage  of  mountain  and  plain  can 
never  be  absolutely  owned  by  any 
one  man,  however  many  times 
a  millionaire.  Nature  gives  the 
poorest  a  right  of  way  over  most 
of  her  domains. 

"When  daisies  go,  shall  winter-time, 
Silver  the  simple  grass  with  rime 
Autumnal  frost  enchant  the  pool, 
And  make  the  cart  ruts  beautiful, 
To  make  this  earth  our  hermitage, 
A  cheerful  and  a  changeful  page, 
God's  bright  and  intricate  device 
Of  days  and  seasons  doth  suffice." 

Ah !  friends,  it  is  because  we  are 
paupers  in  heart,  a  very  different 
thing  from  being  humble  in  spirit, 
that  we  are  bankrupt  of  joy.  If 
some  of  those  who  rebel  at  poverty 
could  penetrate  the  shams  that 
16 


sometimes  are  the  portion  of 
wealth,  their  foolish  envy  would 
be  scattered  like  a  morning  mist 
in  the  sun. 

Says  Dr.  Matheson  pithily,  "  We 
think  of  heaven  as  needing  the 
photographs  of  earth  to  make 
^-earthly  memory!  The  Mount  of 
God  does  not  need  to  be  made 
after  the  pattern  of  the  human; 
the  human  has  already  been  pat- 
terned after  the  Mount  of  God." 
Heaven  may  be  our  portion  before- 
hand, if  our  love  is  there;  if  our 
thoughts  are  there ;  if  our  conversa- 
tion, meaning  by  the  word,  the 
whole  conduct  of  our  affairs,  is 
already  there.  What  folly  to 
weigh  trifles  of  wealth  or  poverty 
in  the  scale,  as  affecting  our  joy. 
Our  convenience,  our  comfort,  may 
17 


depend  on  these,  but  not  that 
deeper,  more  enduring  thing,  our 
humor  and  mood,  our  joy.  For  is 
not  that  Christ's  joy?  "Who,  for 
the  joy  that  was  set  before  him 
endured  the  cross,  despising  the 
shame  I" 

It  is  seldom  the  Master's  will 
that  we  carry  no  cross.  Hidden 
from  the  sight  of  those  around  us, 
our  cross  may  be  revealed  only  to 
the  eyes  of  our  Saviour.  The  hid- 
den cross  is  often  the  heaviest. 
But  we  too,  sharing  his  cross,  may 
endure  it,  whether  or  not  the 
world  know  our  secret,  as  seeing 
Him  who  is  to  them  invisible,  and 
a  tide  of  joy,  present  as  well  as 
prospective,  may  cover  the  waste 
places  of  our  lives. 

Yet  another  phase  of  this  sub- 
18 


m 


ject  appeals  to  us  on  the  practical 
side.  Young  people  should  never 
be  hindered  in  the  Christian  race 
nor  be  kept  away  from  the  King- 
dom by  the  idea  that  Christianity 
means  gloom.  Undoubtedly  there 
are  very  good  people  whose  relig- 
ion never  seems  to  brighten  their 
everyday  lives.  They  give  an 
impression  of  the  shadow  on  the 
feast;  they  behave  as  if  gaiety 
were  a  crime.  Their  homes  are  not 
cheerful  plac.es,  and  their  piety, 
though  real,  is  austere.  These 
believers  are  mistaken  if  they 
suppose  that  they  are  imitating 
Christ  by  then' sorrowful  demeanor. 
Our  Lord  when  on  earth  was  the 
centre  of  a  cheerful,  curiously 
interested  and  eager  group  of 
earnest  men,  and  crowds  of  com- 
19 


.-  - 1 


TTbe  Sosful  %ife. 


mon  folk,  with  their  laughter 
unchecked,  their  arguments  un- 
hushed,  their  tasks  going  on  as 
usual,  gathered  whenever  he  ap- 
peared. The  very  children  ran 
to  clutch  his  garments,  to  take  his 
hand.  A  man  of  sorrows  and 
acquainted  with  grief,  he  was  yet 
no  unwelcome  guest  at  the  feast 
and  no  bar  upon  any  joy.  We  do 
him  a  great  wrong  when  we 
frighten  the  children  from  him  by 
our  crossness  or  our  curtness. 
Gravity  and  soberness  at  appro- 
priate times  are  not  inconsistent 
with  true  cheerfulness. 

I  often  wish  when  I  see  the 
young  hesitating  on  the  threshold 
of  the  Kingdom  that  they  might 
realize  how  much  they  lose  by 
staying  away.  Not  a  friend  below 
20 


3ogful  Xtfe* 


1C 


can  offer  so  much  of  enduring 
joy  as  is  freely  offered  by  this 
Friend  with  the  pierced  hands 
and  the  head  once  crowned  with 
thorns.  The  sweetness  of  his  call 
will  be  in  your  soul,  dear  child  of 
time,  to  all  eternity.  You  can 
never  know  immortal  joy  if  you 
do  not  heed  it.  "Come  unto  Me, " 
he  says,  "and  I  will  give  you  rest." 
Yes,  Lord  Jesus,  we  will  come, 
and  receive  in  this  life,  and  in  the 
life  unending,  peace,  rest  and  joy, 
for  at  thy  right  hand  there  are 
pleasures  for  evermore. 

"I  am  oft  alone,  dear  Saviour, 

Yet  I  know  not  lonely  days ; 
Thou  art  more  than  home  or  kindred 

Unto  thee  I  lift  my  praise. 
And  by  many  a  desert  fountain 
I  can  Ebenezer  raise. 
21 


%ife. 


In  the  throng,  Oh !  blessed  Saviour 
Oft  I  seek  a  place  apart, 

And  I  find  thee  coming  to  me, 
Shrined  and  templed  in  my  heart. 

Thou  canst  make  a  sanctuary 
Wheresoe'er  thou  sendest  me, 

And  in  midst  of  crowds  uncounted 
I  can  be  alone  with  thee. 

Joy  of  joys  to  know  my  Saviour, 
Love  of  loves  to  feel  him  near; 

Earth  can  give  no  other  treasure 
Half  so  precious,  half  so  dear. 

Till  I  meet  my  lord  in  heaven, 
I  may  have  a  heaven  below; 

If  with  him,  I  stay  contented, 
Joyful,  if  with  him  I  go." 


22 


VV13 


WE  are  all  agreed  that  the 
early  impressions  are 
the  most  enduring  and 
that  lasting  shape  and  trend 
are  often  given  to  human  lives 
while  children  are  yet  in  infancy. 
A  mother's  prayers,  a  father's 
faith,  the  Christian  atmosphere 
of  the  home,  the  place  the  Bible 
holds  in  the  family,  are  vital  in- 
fluences in  childish  training,  and 
preempt  the  little  one  for  heaven 
before  the  evil  of  the  world  has 
23 


had  time  to  occupy  the  heart's 
soil.  It  is  the  privilege  of  Chris- 
tian parents  to  claim  covenant 
rights  for  their  offspring,  and  to 
expect  that  they  will  early  enter 
into  their  birthright  as  children 
of  God.  Alas!  too  often  we  are 
careless  and  inconsiderate,  and 
undo  by  our  example  what  we 
are  painstakingly  doing  by  our 
precept.  The  influences  which 
are  moulding  our  precious  sons  and 
daughters  are  often  corrupt,  or 
sordid,  or  ignoble,  because  we 
are  contended  to  live  a  half -con- 
secrated life,  to  keep  back  from 
God  what  belongs  to  him,  and 
to  realize  only  fragmentary  bless- 
edness, instead  of  the  rounded 
whole  of  peace  and  joy  which 
the  Lord  bestows  on  those  who 
24 


Influences, 


consciously  abide  in  him,  and  in 
whom  he  dwells. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  common 
mistake  of  the  mother  who  frets 
at  her  children  because  she 
is  nervous,  irritable  and  much 
worn  in  temper  and  health.  She 
tells  them  to  speak  gently,  to  be 
patient,  to  move  quietly,  to  be 
forgiving  and  kind.  This  is  good 
counsel.  But  she  has  worries  of 
one  sort  or  another.  Money 
comes  in  slowly;  perhaps  she  fore- 
casts the  future  and  fears  the 
rainy  day.  She  is  aware  of  less- 
ened strength,  or  some  malady 
menaces  her  comfort.  Headaches 
creep  stealthily  on  her  busy  days, 
like  foes  from  an  ambush.  Before 
she  is  aware  of  it  her  tones  are 
sharp  and  her  frown  is  shrewish; 
25 


she  scolds  and  nags;  trifles  are 
exalted  into  affairs  of  importance ; 
she  punishes  in  anger;  she  does 
not  accept  excuses  or  explana- 
tions, and  the  home  is  a  place 
to  flee  from.  All  the  preaching 
that  this  poor  mother  can  find 
time  for  is  utterly  abortive,  ruined 
by  her  blundering  and  sinful  prac- 
tice. She  is  moulding,  not  gentle, 
self-controlled  and  considerate 
young  folk  of  exquisite  manners 
and  unfailing  courtesy,  but  hasty, 
brusque  and  easily  exasperated 
people,  who  will  imitate  her  ways 
until  the  wrong  habit  finally  be- 
comes a  second  nature. 

I  fancy  the  dear  Lord  whose 

compassions  fail  not,  bending  in 

divine  sorrow  over  such  an  one, 

and  seeking  to  restore  her  soul, 

26 


to  lead  her  again  into  the  paths 
of  righteousness  for  his  name's 
sake.  And  if  she  will  but  heed 
the  way  of  peace  is  easy  to  find. 
If  but  at  each  morning's  dawning 
she  will  turn  to  him  first,  make 
a  definite  surrender  of  the  day  to 
him,  ask  him  to  enter  the  temple 
of  her  body,  and  to  cleanse  her 
soul,  so  that  it  may  be  his  fit  habi- 
tation; if,  whenever  the  impulse 
to  sin  comes  upon  her,  she  will 
swiftly  and  silently  pray  for  help, 
and  refrain  from  speech  until  she 
feels  the  help  given,  her  whole  life 
will  be  changed,  uplifted  and 
brightened.  We  get  too  far  from 
our  Lord.  We  are  like  children 
wandering  in  the  bush,  going 
around  in  circles — the  home  near 
with  its  light  and  warmth,  but 
27 


Ube 


we,  confused  and  stumbling,  turn- 
ing from  it.  Nervous  and  worried 
women  can  nowhere  find  a  com- 
plete cure  except  at  the  feet  of 
Jesus ;  but  he  is  ever  close  at  hand, 
and  can  relieve  them,  if  they  will  but 
call  to  him,  the  Healer  of  the  soul. 
Do  we  appreciate  at  its  true 
worth  the  value  of  calmness  in 
our  life  with  the  children? 

"Calm  me,  my  God,  and  keep  me  calm. 
Soft  resting  on  thy  breast," 

should  be  the  mother's  unceasing 
prayer. 

Nothing  is  sadder  than  to  ob- 
serve an  anxious  look  on  a  little 
face,  a  look  of  dread  and  depre- 
cation, where  confidence  should 
be  the  rule.  Penitence  is  not 
dread.  The  child  that  grows  up 
in  a  home  sweet  with  that  piety 

28 


which  exorcises  the  evil  demons 
of  worry  and  ill-temper  will  be 
sorry  when  he  does  wrong,  and 
will  hasten  to  confess  it  and,  if 
need  be,  will  accept  the  just  pen- 
alty, and  thus  take  the  first  step 
toward  true  repentance  and  sav- 
ing trust  in  the  cleansing  blood 
of  the  Redeemer.  The  moulding 
influence  of  vital  trust  in  Jesus, 
on  the  part  of  parents,  cannot 
but  prove  of  ceaseless  and  benefi- 
cent effect  upon  the  children  of 
the  household,  who  should  also 
be  children  of  the  heavenly  King. 
The  Bible  has  a  good  deal  to 
say  about  our  walk  and  conver- 
sation. It  reminds  us  of  the 
responsibility  we  have  for  our 
words,  especially  for  our  idle  words. 
Now,  hi  one  phase  of  our  daily 
29 


life,  we  all  need  the  suggestion 
that  we  should  guard  our  ordinary 
talk.  Many  a  tune  we  thought- 
lessly comment  on  the  actions  of 
our  acquaintances,  criticize  them, 
and  attribute  to  them  motives 
of  which  they  may  never  have 
dreamed.  We  do  not  indulge 
in  anything  so  gross  as  slander, 
and  we  hold  ourselves  above 
malicious  gossip,  and  yet,  in 
a  multitude  of  needless  ways, 
we  violate  the  law  of  kindness 
which  should  be  on  our  lips. 
Those  who  listen  to  us,  whether 
they  are  young  or  old,  either 
suffer  some  diminution  of  the 
high  ideal  which  they  should  as- 
sociate with  the  talk  of  Christians, 
or  have  a  protest,  perhaps  un- 
spoken, in  their  minds,  against 
30 


Influences. 


our  faults,  or,  still  worse,  fall  into 
the  same  error  themselves.  A 
mother  is  sitting  in  a  group  of 
friends,  her  own  daughter  one  of 
the  number.  A  lady  is  mentioned 
as  having  formed  one  of  the  con- 
tingent at  a  summer  boarding- 
house.  "I  was  disgusted,"  says 
the  matron,  "with  Mrs.  C.  She 
was  constantly  maneuvering  and 
managing  to  secure  the  best  seats 
for  herself  and  her  party  when 
we  were  driving;  she  tried  to 
out-shine  the  rest;  her  boasting 
grew  very  tedious  and  monoto- 
nous." Presently  the  conversa- 
tion veers  toward  another  quarter 
and  Mrs.  C.  is  forgotten.  But 
if  a  young  girl  sitting  by  has  noted 
the  acerbity  of  reprehension,  the 
sharp  dislike  latent  hi  the  mother's 
31 


remarks,  she  will  have  imbibed 
the  idea  that  such  comment  is 
permissible  among  gentlewomen. 
If,  further,  in  the  course  of  events, 
after  a  day  or  two,  she  is  present 
when  her  mother  receives  the 
offending  Mrs.  C.  most  graciously, 
as  if  she  were  a  much-prized 
friend,  the  girl  will  have  been 
propelled  down  an  easy  descent 
into  the  valley  of  social  insincerity. 
A  false  compliment  as  surely  aids 
in  moulding  a  susceptible  nature 
into  deceit  as  does  any  other  bit 
of  mendacity. 

These  are  by  way  of  illustrating 
the  alien  and  evil  influences  which 
may  deform  character.  We  may 
multiply  them  at  pleasure.  But, 
equally  potential,  and  equally 
within  our  reach,  are  those  holier, 
32 


ADoulMng  Influences* 


happier  influences  which  elevate, 
expand  and  beautify  the  human 
soul. 

First  and  most  important  and 
within  reach  of  every  disciple  is 
the  presence  in  hearts  and  homes 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Some  of  us 
speak  of  the  vital  spirit  of  God  as 
if  we  were  dealing  with  an  essence 
or  an  abstraction,  not  as  if  we 
were  alluding  reverently  to  a  per- 
son. Asking  for  the  Comforter, 
as  we  should,  accepting  the  Spirit 
by  faith,  and  daily  seeking  to  be 
filled  with  him,  we  shall  gain  a 
tremendous  amount  of  power  for 
good  over  all  whom  we  meet. 
Not  ourselves,  feeble,  inert,  erring, 
apt  to  make  mistakes,  but  God 
himself  working  in  us,  speaking 
through  us,  should  be  the  lever 
33 


brought  to  bear  upon  a  sinful 
world. 

Every  Christian  is  of  necessity 
a  missionary.  Not  always  to  a 
remote  frontier  or  to  a  distant 
land,  not  even  always  to  a 
thronged  tenement  neighborhood, 
nor  to  a  factory  town  where  temp- 
tations abound,  often  only  to  our 
own  kith  and  kin,  our  classmates, 
our  friends,  our  homes,  do  we 
carry  the  blessed  gospel  message. 

When  anyone  communes  con- 
stantly with  the  Saviour,  is  fre- 
quently in  prayer,  and  lives  first 
for  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and 
later  for  earthly  gam  and  labor, 
there  will  be  around  him  an  at- 
mosphere of  fragrance  and  peace 
which  will  attract  those  with  whom 
he  dwells  to  the  blessed  Christ. 
34 


Unfluences. 


A  Christian  lad  in  a  shop,  a  Chris- 
tian merchant  in  the  counting 
room,  a  Christian  woman  in  so- 
ciety will,  if  wholly  consecrated, 
draw  those  hi  his  or  her  company  to 
Immanuel,  and  the  place  of  his  or 
her  service  will  be  Immanuel' s  land. 

To  this  blessedness  may  we 
not  attain,  who  love  our  Master, 
and  are  fain  to  set  our  feet  in  the 
footprints  he  has  left  us  on  the 
road  through  this  place  of  our 
pilgrimage,  to  our  unending  home? 

If  we  honestly  hope  to  tram 
the  coming  generation  into  robust 
discipleship,  we  must  not  neglect 
to  form  in  them  the  habit,  not 
merely  of  Bible  reading,  but  of 
serious  Bible  study.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  using  the  Bible 
as  a  fetich.  They  do  this  who 
35 


Ube  3o£ful  Xfte. 


hastily  peruse  a  few  verses  in  the 
morning  or  snatch  a  sleepy  glance 
at  a  psalm  or  a  text  at  night, 
opening  the  Book  anywhere,  and 
reading  without  thought.  One's 
morning  watch,  never  intermitted 
in  health,  should  include  prayer 
and  regular  reading,  according 
to  a  plan.  The  child  who  is 
taught  from  the  beginning  to  read 
the  whole  Bible  will  be  furnished, 
when  he  reaches  manhood,  with 
a  complete  armory  of  weapons 
with  which  to  resist  the  wiles  of 
the  devil. 

I  know  mothers  who  never  fail 
to  secure  a  daily  half  hour  for 
Bible  study  with  their  growing 
children.  I  think  of  a  circle  of 
young  people  who  daily  gather 
around  a  loved  sister,  and  read 
36 


Influences. 


each  day  four  or  five  chapters  of 
the  Word; who  are  familiar  with 
its  highways  and  byways  through 
consecutive  morning  study.  Ques- 
tions are  asked,  and  attention 
is  enlisted,  but  the  half  hour  is 
never  regarded  as  a  weariness; 
for,  in  that  home,  it  is  the  coro- 
nation of  the  happy  day^ 

Sometimes,  dear  friends,  we  dis- 
cover in  our  own  spiritual  lives  a 
strange  deadness  and  formality. 
We  respond  to  no  tender  touch 
hi  the  world's  bustle,  bidding  us 
come  apart  and  rest  awhile.  We 
almost  question  the  genuineness 
of  our  conversion.  Can  branches 
so  leafless  and  barren  belong  to 
the  living  vine?  Yet  let  us  never 
question  the  keeping  love  of  the 
dear  Lord,  who  is  able  to  guard 
37 


us  from  stumbling,  and  to  present 
us  in  his  presence,  without  blemish 
with  exceeding  joy.  If  we  lack 
the  consolation  of  assurance  it  is 
through  our  lack  of  faith,  and 
faith  is  the  Master's  gift.  Let 
us  use  the  little  faith  we  have  and 
cling  not  to  that,  nor  to  any 
crutch  of  our  own,  but  to  the 
promises  and  to  the  eternal  truth 
and  love  of  God  in  Christ.  Let 
us  simply  go  on,  doing  our  duty 
as  best  we  may,  and  we  shall  find 
soon  or  late  that 

"  It  is  better  to  walk  with  God  in  the  dark 
Than  to  walk  alone  in  the  light." 

In  some  radiant  moment  the 
mists  shall  drift  aside,  and  we 
shall  behold  the  clear  shining  of 
his  face.  But  even  if  light  be 
never  vouchsafed,  and  we  lack 
38 


the  sweet  sense  of  Christ's  near- 
ness and  of  his  approval,  we  must 
still  endeavor  to  walk  with  him. 
The  world  is  to  be  won  for 
Christ  by  hand-to-hand  conflict. 
Individual  faithfulness,  individual 
testimony,  individual  influence, 
must  carry  the  conquests  of  the 
cross  over  the  globe.  The  spirit 
of  the  disciple  must  be  free  from 
self-seeking,  and  Christ  must  reign 
in  those  who  serve  him.  Then 
they  cannot  but  everywhere  and 
always  show  forth  his  amazing 
love  and  grace. 

"  When  I  survey  the  wondrous  cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  glory  died, 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss 

And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride." 

One  more  persuasive  and  benign 

influence  we  may  mention,   and 
39 


ttbe  Sosful  Xife, 


that  is  the  power  of  Christian 
friendship.  When  we  who  love 
Christ  meet,  why  should  we  be 
so  shy  of  speaking  his  praise?  In 
our  letters  can  we  not  slip  hi  some 
heart  word  about  the  King,  or 
send  a  poem  or  a  leaflet  to  be  a 
reminder  of  his  goodness?  Con- 
tempt on  our  pride?  Yes,  but 
loyalty  for  and  pride  in  our 
Beloved,  who  is  the  chief  among 
ten  thousand,  and  altogether 
lovely.  Well  may  we  crown  him 
Lord  of  all — Lord  of  our  homes, 
our  ambitions,  our  friendships  and 
our  whole  lives. 
And 

"  His  name  like  sweet  perfume  shall  rise 
With  every  morning  sacrifice. 
To  him  shall  endless  prayers  be  made. " 


ttbe  Christian 
Woman's  ©pportunity 


WOMAN,    in    Christian 
lands   and    in    modern 
times,  has  always  been 
influential,  and  her  voice,  albeit 
not  lifted  in  the  market  place,  has 
been  potential  in  the  shaping  of 
opinion  and  the  formation  of  ideals 
in  the  home  and  in  society.      But 
as  never  before,  in  the  twentieth 
century  woman  finds  herself  dow- 
ered with  responsibility  and  lis- 
tened   to    with    attention;    gates 
once   closed  swing  open  for  her 
entrance,  and  there  are  few  avoca- 
41 


tions  which  forbid  her  approach. 
Indeed,  her  only  limitations  at 
present  are  those  which  belong 
to  the  peculiarly  delicate  though 
elastic  organization  which  the 
Creator  gave  her  when  he  set 
her  apart  as  the  mother  of  the 
race.  Certain  rough  work  of  the 
soldier  and  the  sailor  she  may 
never  do.  Some  of  the  perilous 
labors  of  the  builder  and  the  en- 
gineer will  never  fall  into  her 
hands.  But  she  is  not  debarred 
from  any  pursuits,  except  those 
for  which  she  is  evidently  physi- 
cally unfitted  and  which  would 
manifestly  interfere  with  her 
guardianship  of  the  home  and  her 
care  of  little  children. 

It  would  seem,  dear  friends,  as 
if   the   economic    changes   which 
42 


Woman's  Opportunity 

have  pushed  so  many  women 
out  of  the  seclusion  of  the  house- 
hold and  into  the  shop,  the  count- 
ing-room and  the  several  profes- 
sions, have  given  Christ's  hand- 
maidens very  marked  advantages 
hi  carrying  on  their  work  for  him. 
The  invention  of  typewriting 
alone,  and  its  general  introduction 
into  business  houses,  has  brought 
numbers  of  young  girls  into  cleri- 
cal situations — a  thousand  aman- 
uenses and  secretaries  for  every 
one  of  forty  years  ago — and  as 
they  sit  at  their  machines,  or 
take  dictation,  these  girls  have 
a  chance,  by  fidelity,  by  womanly 
modesty,  by  happy  unconscious- 
ness of  self,  to  show  whether  or 
not  they  belong  to  the  Lord  Jesus. 
They  need  not  preach,  they  need 
43 


not  say  a  word,  they  need  only 
live  as  Christ's  followers  in  the 
midst  of  their  busy  days,  and 
the  sweet  impression  of  their  con- 
duct will  not  fail  of  its  effect. 

Recently  I  heard  a  man,  not  a 
Christian,  speak  in  terms  of  pro- 
found respect  of  a  young  woman 
who  was  employed  as  stenographer 
by  a  legal  firm.  "She  bears  her- 
self above  anything  small  or  self- 
seeking;  she  does  more  than  her 
duty;  no  one  can  help  seeing  that 
the  little  silver  cross  she  wears 
means  that  she  is  a  devoted  Chris- 
tian." Every  King's  Daughter, 
wearing  the  beautiful  little  badge 
of  the  order,  may  thus  silently 
be  a  witness-bearer  in  her  business 
life,  and  many  a  girl  who  carries 
no  visible  emblem  may  show  in 
44 


her  quiet  manner,  her  thorough- 
ness, gentleness  and  fineness  of 
character,  that  she  draws  strength 
from  above.  The  business  woman 
may  well  heed  the  divine  in- 
junction to  let  the  light  shine 
brightly. 

A  little  candle,  Lord,  for  thee! 

So  let  it  burn  where  shadows  meet, 
While  daily  in  humility 

I  bend  me  at  thy  pierced  feet. 

The  girl  behind  the  counter,  the 
girl  hi  the  nurse's  uniform,  the 
girl  who  makes  bonnets  and 
dresses,  the  girl  whose  place  is 
in  the  factory,  the  girl  who  does 
housework  and  helps  the  home 
life  by  her  services,  each  hi  her 
place  has  an  opportunity  to  work 
for  Jesus.  Sometimes  it  will  lead 
her  to  sweet  and  tactful  speech. 

45 


TTbe 


Xite* 


Sometimes  to  a  deed  of  benefi- 
cence, occasionally  to  indignant 
resentment,  if  there  be  profanity 
or  sneers  in  her  presence.  What- 
ever the  need,  the  One  whose 
grace  is  equal  to  her  day  will  help 
the  Christian  woman  to  testify 
for  her  Lord  in  the  place  where 
he  has  put  her.  That  place  may 
be  obscure,  but  it  is  never  unim- 
portant, and  she  will  ennoble  her 
life  as  she  is  faithful  in  her  daily 
duties.  In  God's  sight  there  is 
neither  small  nor  great,  but  all 
work  is  equally  honorable  in  his 
accounting.  Away  back  in  Old 
Testament  days  it  was  a  little 
captive  daughter  of  Israel  in  the 
house  of  the  Syrian  general  who 
did  the  Lord's  will,  and  she  has 
remained  an  example  for  women 
46 


Woman's  Opportunity 


as   a   type   of   loyal   faithfulness 
through  the  long  ages. 

In  society,  too,  the  Christian 
woman  has  a  splendid  opportunity 
to  show  her  colors.  Not  all  homes 
of  wealth  and  fashion  are  ante- 
rooms of  Vanity  Fair.  There  are 
thousands  of  refined  and  beautiful 
homes  where  there  is  consecration 
to  God  and  the  clear  shining  of 
pure  religion  and  undefiled.  And 
yet,  along  with  wealth  and  luxury, 
march  temptations  to  sloth,  to 
indifference  and  to  sinful  apathy. 
As  once  to  the  cultured  Greeks 
the  cross  was  foolishness,  so  now, 
in  the  eyes  of  many  well-mannered, 
well-trained  Americans,  the  whole 
realm  of  religious  thought  and 
principle  seems  an  enchanted 
ground  of  mere  sentimentality— 
47 


"incomes  from  dreamland" — and 
they  look  with  pity  on  those  whose 
hopes  and  aspirations  are  set  upon 
a  better  world.  The  prevalent 
license  of  speech,  the  continual 
breaking  of  the  Sabbath,  the  in- 
crease of  social  drinking  customs, 
and  the  neglect  of  the  Bible  and 
of  God's  house,  the  omission  of 
family  worship  and  of  grace  at  the 
table,  too,  show  that  in  the  polite 
domain  of  the  wealthier  classes 
Christ's  banner  is  not  honored. 
There  is  no  mission  to  poverty 
or  sorrow,  to  the  tenements  or  the 
zenanas,  which  is  more  necessary 
or  more  relentless  in  its  obligation 
than  that  mission  to  the  palace  and 
the  mansion  which  invites  the 
Christian  woman.  If  she  will  but 
be  consistent,  go  from  her  chamber 

48 


Woman's  ©pportunitp. 


in  the  morning  with  the  sweetness 
of  the  Saviour's  love  upon  her 
lips  after  her  watch  with  him, 
refrain  from  doubtful  pleasures, 
illustrate  the  beauty  of  holiness 
in  her  walk  and  conversation,  as 
an  "elect  lady,"  she  may  win 
others  to  her  Lord,  and  diffuse 
around  her  an  atmosphere  of 
piety  fragrant  as  the  lilies  of 
peace.  Her  best  opportunities 
will  come  to  her  as  constantly 
she  lives  in  Christ  and  Christ  lives 
in  her. 

Take  the  familiar  example  of  the 
woman's  college,  where  the  daugh- 
ters of  various  households  are 
brought  together  from  every  State 
in  the  Union.  Here  we  find  a  girl, 
who  represents  a  home  vital  with 
love  to  Jesus,  side  by  side  with 
49 


ttbe 


xtte. 


another  who  is  charming,  graceful, 
ambitions,  yet  either  altogether 
opposed  to  religion,  or  utterly  apa- 
thetic to  its  claims.  The  girl  who 
is  pledged  to  service,  by  church 
membership,  or  by  her  heart's 
allegiance  to  Jesus,  can  and  does 
impress  her  companions  so  that 
they  cannot  continue  in  indiffer- 
ence. Some  of  them  at  least  will 
be  forced  to  look  at  themselves  in 
the  light  of  the  Christian's  candle, 
and  to  decide  whether  they  will 
be  the  world's  or  the  Lord's. 
Others  will,  half  unconsciously, 
receive  some  blessing  from  the 
young  disciple,  and  her  influence 
will  reach  further  than  she  im- 
agines, for  the  benefit  of  her 
college  and  of  those  to  whom, 
by-and-by,  its  graduates  will  go. 
50 


IKIloman's  ©pportunitp. 

A  wonderful  missionary  oppor- 
tunity is  afforded  the  Christian 
woman  in  our  times.  She  may 
teach,  she  may  be  an  evangelist, 
she  may  go  as  a  physician,  or  as 
the  wife  of  a  minister,  but  she  will 
find  on  many  a  dark  shore  the 
women  and  the  children  waiting 
to  be  taught  of  Christ.  Mrs. 
Howard  Taylor,  of  the  China  In- 
land Mission,  was  speaking  at 
Northfield  this  last  summer  of  the 
duty  laid  upon  Christian  women 
to  illuminate  the  gloom  of  heathen- 
dom. She  told  of  the  unspeak- 
able wretchedness  of  China,  a 
wretchedness  so  fathomless  that 
it  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  little 
girls  of  nine  and  ten  years  of  age 
to  commit  suicide  to  escape  from 
it.  Jesus  said,  "Suffer  the  little 
51 


children  to  come  unto  me  and 
forbid  them  not."  "If,"  said 
Mrs.  Taylor,  "you  in  America 
stand  by  and  take  no  share  in 
helping  missionary  effort,  you  are 
forbidding  the  children  for  whom 
Christ  died  to  come  unto  him. 
By  our  personal  sacrifices,  by  our 
gifts,  by  our  prayers,  we  who  love 
the  Lord  may,  in  these  marvelous 
years  of  the  open  door,  bring  the 
lost  into  his  blessed  fold." 

Apart  from  the  opportunity  of 
the  Christian  woman  as  an  indi- 
vidual, there  is  at  present  the 
multiplication  of  efficient  organi- 
zations and  societies  through 
which  she  may  send  her  contri- 
butions and  by  which  she  may 
help  humanity  and  glorify  her 
Saviour.  In  the  Young  Women's 
52 


Woman's  Opportunity 


Christian  Associations  which  are 
now  found  in  strong  co-operative 
work  in  our  various  cities  and 
towns,  in  Europe,  in  Asia,  in  the 
islands  of  the  sea,  there  is  a  cordon 
of  hearts  beating  as  one,  and  re- 
sponsive to  orders  from  on  high. 
She  who  cannot  personally  visit 
factories  and  shops,  or  personally 
touch  undergraduates  in  college, 
or  personally  comfort  and  elevate 
the  struggling  masses  of  discour- 
aged women,  may  give  her  name, 
her  contribution  and  her  sym- 
pathy to  the  association  nearest 
her,  and  work  by  its  means. 
Settlement  work  also  makes  its 
appeals,  and  commends  Christ 
to  the  lowly.  The  missionary  so- 
ciety, the  prayer  circle,  the  tem- 
perance band,  all  afford  the  oppor- 
53 


tunity  of  organization  to  the 
woman  who  seeks  to  be  widely 
helpful. 

We  must  not  overlook,  because 
it  is  so  conspicuous,  the  ever  bright 
and  ever  beautiful  opportunity  of 
the  Christian  woman  in  her  home— 
the  mother  who  has  her  little  ones 
from  the  earliest  hours,  who  can 
lead  them  to  Christ,  pre-empting 
the  soil  for  him  before  the  evil 
one  can  sow  tares;  the  wife 
who  may  so  strongly  influence 
her  husband  for  good,  bringing 
him,  if  unbelieving,  to  the  Lord 
she  loves ;  the  daughter,  the  sister, 
the  friend  within  the  gates,  each 
has  her  vineyard  plot  to  keep  and 
tend. 

The  mother  will  most  surely 
win  her  children  to  the  sweet 
54 


succession  of  service  which  should 
distinguish  the  family,  from  gen- 
eration to  generation — one,  an- 
other, and  another,  living  for  God — 
by  keeping  her  spiritual  life  on  a 
high  plane.  The  fire  never  re- 
plenished dies  out.  The  Christian 
seldom  attending  the  sanctuary, 
seldom  reading  the  Word,  infre- 
quent in  prayer,  is  not  hi  touch 
with  heaven. 

When  we  are  tranquilized  by 
communion  with  God,  we  shall 
not  easily  lose  our  tempers  nor 
often  be  overcome  by  the  low 
mood,  nor  commit  sins  which  lead 
others  astray.  Infelicities  of 
speech  and  conduct,  bringing 
shame  upon  the  Christian  name, 
are  the  result  of  a  barren  spiritual 
life,  of  little  prayer  and  of  absence 
55 


and  distance  from  the  Master. 
The  mother,  sister,  daughter, 
friend,  who  shows  forth  Christ, 
must  abide  with  Christ. 


Not  far  from  thee,  my  Saviour, 
But  near  thee  would  I  dwell. 

Would  open  wide  my  door  to  thee 
And  all  thy  goodness  tell, 

Because  I  see  thee  face  to  face, 
And  ever  know  thee  well. 

Remote  from  thee  is  coldness, 
And  weakness  in  the  strife; 

Remote  from  thee  is  weariness, 
And  doubts  and  fears  are  rife. 

But  when  I  hold  thy  hand  I  have 
The  blessed  heavenly  life 

Are  there  those  who  have  spent 
their  substance  for  this  world's 
rewards,  are  aware  that  their 
portion  thus  far  has  been  dis- 
appointment and  pain?  Are 
there  some  who  have  heard  again 
and  again  the  voice  of  Jesus  call- 
56 


Woman's  ©pportunitg. 

ing,  calling,  yet  have  not  obeyed 
it,  and  have  refused  to  come 
unto  him?  For  women,  Christ- 
loved,  Christ-honored,  Christ- 
elevated,  there  is  little  excuse,  if 
they  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  his  invi- 
tations. 

Let  none  of  us  be  despondent  be- 
cause we  do  not  see  any  great 
results  of  our  teaching,  or  our 
efforts.  It  is  not  given  to  us  to 
always  know  what  we  have  ac- 
complished. It  should  be  enough 
for  us  that  Christ  knows.  Per- 
haps we  are  only  setting  in  motion 
a  tram  of  circumstances  which 
shall  never  stop  their  beneficence 
till  their  last  ripples  break  on  the 
shores  of  the  crystal  sea. 


57 


tlbe  Dacation  flDontb. 


AUGUST  has  the  preeminent 
distinction  of  being  the  vaca- 
tion month  in  the  calendar. 
Not  that  other   months   of    the 
summer  and  the  early  autumn  are 
not  equally  serviceable  for  holiday 
purposes,    but  in    August    there 
occurs  a  lull  in  business,  a  mid- 
season  pause  when  people  can  be 
laid  off  without  disadvantage.  Be- 
sides, in  the  increase  of  material 
comforts  and   luxuries,  we   have 
gradually  learned  that  change  and 
recreation  are  beneficial  to  health 
59 


so  that  city  men  and  their  families 
are  more  and  more  going  to  the 
country  at  the  tune  when  the 
former  can  best  be  spared  from 
the  grind  of  daily  toil. 

Whenever  the  summer  recess 
can  be  so  arranged  that  the  whole 
household  may  share  its  pleas- 
ures in  common,  there  is  a  mani- 
fest improvement  over  the  plan 
of  sending  the  wife  and  children 
away,  while  the  bread-winner  toils 
on  alone  at  home.  Sometimes, 
where  there  are  delicate  babies  to 
be  considered,  or  invalids  to  be 
sent  to  a  breezy,  rural  atmosphere, 
the  husband  must,  with  the  self- 
denial  for  which  American  hus- 
bands are  conspicuous,  give  up 
the  society  of  his  family  and  eat 
solitary  meals,  and  sleep  in  a 
60 


ftbe  Vacation  flDontb. 


lonely  house  during  most  of  the 
hot  season.  Few  men  of  ordinary 
means  can  afford  a  prolonged 
vacation;  they  must  be  content 
with  a  fortnight  or,  at  most,  a 
month.  If  they  have  resolved  to 
endure  a  summer  of  silence  and 
makeshifts  at  home,  they  say 
nothing  about  it,  and  there  is 
seldom  so  much  as  a  note  of  com- 
plaint even  hi  then*  letters  to  the 
absent  ones.  The  wife  hears 
nothing  of  the  stuffy  house,  the 
dinners  at  restaurants,  the  sudden 
illness  in  the  night  when  there 
was  need  of  ministration,  but  the 
battle  was  grimly  fought  out  un- 
aided; nothing  of  the  clanging 
car  bells,  the  blasting  of  rocks, 
and  the  never-hushed  roar  of  the 
town.  Her  good  man  is  solicitous 
61 


that  she  shall  enjoy  herself,  and 
that  the  children  shall  have  their 
fill  of  fresh  air  and  fun.  He  keeps 
his  sufferings  in  the  background. 

Wise  and  far-seeing  is  the 
matron  who,  in  her  vacation 
planning,  so  orders  affairs  that 
somebody  stays  at  home  with 
those  who  cannot  get  away.  A 
shorter  vacation  taken  by  all 
is  better  than  a  longer  one  from 
which  some  toiler  is  excluded.  A 
great  deal  of  comfort  and  cool- 
ness can  be  secured  in  a  city  home, 
if  the  wife  or  the  mother  is  there 
to  watch  the  ventilation,  and  to 
prepare  tempting  meals  for  jaded 
appetites. 

Waiving  this  phase  of  the  sub- 
ject, however,  there  arises  another 
and  very  practical  question  for 
62 


us,  and  that  is,  how  are  we  to  get 
the  most  good  from  a  vacation? 
What  should  it  do  for  us,  and  how 
should  it  tell  upon  the  days  which 
are  to  follow  when  it  has  passed 
away? 

To  be  really  worth  having,  a 
vacation  should  be  complete.  We 
are  a  serious,  and  to  some  extent 
an  anxious,  people.  We  spend  our 
vitality  lavishly  in  our  work. 

Once  out  of  harness,  we  ought 
for  the  time  to  vary  the  routine 
and  to  drop  entirely  the  usual 
cares.  The  doctor,  for  instance, 
a  man  whose  profession  is  most 
exacting,  whose  sleep  is  often 
invaded  by  a  call  to  the  sick-room, 
whose  life  is  one  of  great  responsi- 
bility, should  seek  a  quiet  country- 
side, and  release  from  exertion 
63 


all  the  faculties  which  are  usually 
taxed.  If  he  is  fond  of  fishing, 
let  him  go  out  in  his  boat  and 
spend  hours  seeking  for  a  rise, 
or  let  him  sit  on  the  bank  of  a 
stream  with  his  tackle,  while  the 
tranquil  hours  drift  away  in  tran- 
quil sport.  Fishing  may  not 
attract  him,  but  golf  may,  or  moun- 
tain climbing,  or  sailing,  or  walk- 
ing. Let  him  do  anything  except 
prescribe  for  the  sick.  The  doctor 
should  take  a  vacation,  and  give 
the  rest  of  the  man  a  chance  for 
recuperation. 

So  with  the  pastor.  People  are 
much  too  ready  to  ask  ministers 
on  a  vacation  to  preach,  to  con- 
duct impromptu  services,  to  help 
prayer  meetings  along  by  a  sug- 
gestive address;  in  short,  to  con- 
64 


Vacation  flDontb. 


tinue  away  from  home  the  line 
of  work  in  which  they  are  engaged 
while  there.  This  is  very  thought- 
less on  the  part  of  the  pleaders, 
and  a  minister  is  not  only  justi- 
fied in  refusing  such  services,  but 
fairness  to  himself  and  his  con- 
gregation requires  him  to  refuse. 
No  profession  takes  more  out  of 
mortal  man  than  the  service  of 
the  sanctuary.  It  is  not  limited 
to  the  preparation  and  delivery 
of  sermons;  it  extends  to  the  life 
of  the  parish,  to  the  visiting  of  the 
sick,  the  comforting  of  the  be- 
reaved, the  counseling  of  the  per- 
plexed, the  adjusting  of  difficul- 
ties, the  raising  of  funds  for 
various  projects,  and  the  gratu- 
itous performance  of  unnumbered 
public  functions.  A  minister 
65 


arrives  at  his  annual  vacation 
wearied  intellectually,  physically 
and  spiritually.  He  is  in  a  state 
of  mental  inertia,  and  needs  noth- 
ing so  much  as  absolute  rest,  and 
an  opportunity  to  lie  fallow  for  a 
while.  Now  is  his  time  to  go  to 
church,  and  sit  in  a  pew  and  listen ; 
to  go  to  prayer-meeting  and  slip 
into  a  place  near  the  door;  to  read 
books  which  merely  entertain,  and 
require  small  grasp  of  the  think- 
ing powers,  and  to  be  freed  from 
every  social  obligation  except 
that  of  ordinary  politeness.  His 
wife,  too,  the  busiest  woman  in 
the  congregation,  should  share 
his  holiday,  wholly  oblivious  of 
the  need  to  please  this  or  that 
critical  dame,  and  relieved  of  the 
strain  which  few  ministers'  wives 
66 


Ube  Vacation  fl&ontb. 


escape,  of  hearing  sermons  as  if 
they  heard  them  not  in  their  sub- 
conscious feeling  of  their  effect  on 
the  audience. 

"I  have  thoroughly  enjoyed 
the  Lord's  house  to-day,"  said 
a  friend,  one  summer  evening. 
"  None  of  my  kin  were  in  the  pul- 
pit." She  was  the  daughter  of 
one  minister,  the  sister  of  another, 
and  the  wife  of  a  third.  Every 
minister  and  every  minister's  wife, 
in  city  or  in  country  alike,  should 
guard  with  jealous  care  their  privi- 
lege of  an  annual  vacation,  never 
foregoing  it  on  any  short-sighted 
excuse  of  duty  to  the  people.  A 
rested  man  can  give  his  people 
what  a  worn-out  man  has  not  to 
give. 

In  these  tunes  of  great  demands 
67 


upon  teachers,  some  of  them  are 
making  the  mistake  of  devoting 
entire  vacations  to  study.  A 
term  in  a  summer  school,  if  limi- 
ted, may  prove  stimulating  and 
broadening  to  a  tired  teacher, 
but  the  better  part  of  the  recess 
should  be  devoted,  not  to  study, 
but  to  dreaming  in  a  hammock, 
or  sleeping  in  a  tent,  or  getting 
near  to  Nature's  heart.  Teaching 
is  not  easy  work.  The  teacher 
is  giving  her  pupils  soul  stuff  as 
well  as  information,and  when  va- 
cation opens  the  door  to  her  for 
summer  enjoyment  and  locks  that 
of  the  schoolroom,  the  vacation 
should  not  be  clipped  off  at  the 
corners,  nor  invaded  in  the  middle, 
not  turned  into  a  device  for  some- 
thing it  was  never  meant  to  be. 
68 


TTbe  IDacation  /Bontb. 


Having  used  these  professional 
people  by  way  of  illustration,  it 
may  be  as  well  to  add  that  what 
applies  to  them  is  equally  perti- 
nent to  every  worker  in  what- 
ever field  the  work  is  found.  Some 
years  ago  Col.  T.  W.  Higginson 
wrote  a  clever  essay  under  the 
caption,  "Vacations  for  Saints," 
especially  pointing  to  the  good 
women  on  whose  shoulders  rests 
the  burden  of  asylums,  hospitals, 
industrial  schools  and  other  phil- 
anthropic endeavors.  It  is  no 
sinecure  to  serve  on  a  board  of 
management  of  a  charity  or  of 
missions,  and  the  sisterhood  who 
engage  in  this  particular  altruistic 
labor  emphatically  earn  and  need 
a  period  of  respite.  One  excel- 
lent gentlewoman  has  in  her  own 
69 


case  solved  the  problem  of  securing 
adequate  relief  by  now  and  then 
stepping  out  of  her  place  for  a 
year,  but  most  of  the  elect  ladies 
who  work  in  practical  charities 
are  grateful  for  a  summer's  margin 
when  they  may  feel  no  obligation 
either  to  attend  meetings  or  to 
collect  alms. 

Here  let  me  not  be  misunder- 
stood. The  Christian  disciple  can 
never,  with  any  propriety,  abate 
his  or  her  Christian  zeal,  nor  is 
there  pardonable  room  for  God's 
people  to  excuse  themselves  from 
his  service  of  love  when  they  are 
away  from  home.  The  preacher 
should  not  preach,  but  he  should 
attend  church;  and  equally,  when 
vacation  lures  the  city  church 
member  to  a  rural  parish,  that 
70 


person  should  keep  the  Sabbath, 
and  set  an  example  of  piety  when 
among  strangers.  I  have  heard 
a  country  parson  of  the  plain- 
speaking  type  openly  bewail  the 
injury  which  the  summer  element 
in  his  neighborhood,  an  element 
largely  composed  of  church  people 
from  town,  did  to  his  young  folk. 
We  live  in  a  period  of  increasing 
and  alarming  license,  of  barriers 
pushed  aside  and  landmarks  re- 
moved. Indifference  and  apathy 
are  as  chilling  to  the  growth  of 
Christian  graces  as  are  open  hos- 
tility. No  vacation  should  be 
taken  by  a  Christian  from  Bible 
study,  from  prayer,  and  from  com- 
munion with  Christ,  and  the  ex- 
ercise of  these  duties  and  privi- 
leges will  lead  to  the  sort  of  Chris- 
71 


ttbe 


Xife, 


tian  living  which  sets  a  beautiful 
and  consistent  example. 

Relaxation  is  often  found  in 
change  of  pursuit,  and  the  mother 
who  has  spent  a  twelvemonth 
in  cooking  dainty  dishes  may 
be  glad  to  eat  delicate  fare  which 
somebody  else  prepares.  The 
catering  for  the  household,  how- 
ever simple  the  living  may  be, 
becomes  motononous  after  a  while, 
and  a  woman  enjoys  a  meal  which 
she  has  neither  ordered  nor  pre- 
pared, coming  to  it  as  to  a  novelty. 
After  a  year  of  mending  Tommy's 
trousers,  and  letting  down  Susie's 
tucks,  and  making  Polly's  frocks, 
and  darning  the  stockings  for  the 
whole  brood,  with  their  father's 
thrown  in  as  a  make-weight,  a 
lady  may  find  diversion  in  taking 
72 


Ube  Vacation  flDontb. 


up  some  beautiful  fancy  work, 
fine  embroidery  on  fair  white 
linen,  or  fleecy  knitting,  or  some 
other  feminine  handicraft  which 
is  decorative  rather  than  utili- 
tarian. 

Whether  to  spend  vacations 
consecutively  in  a  place  one  has 
tried  and  learned  to  love,  or  to 
go  about  looking  for  new  points 
of  interest,  must  be  decided  by 
individual  taste  and  by  the  depth 
of  the  pocketbook.  People  may 
spend  a  most  satisfactory  vaca- 
tion at  home,  taking  excursions 
to  interesting  localities  near  by, 
at  a  small  cost.  One's  own  living- 
rooms,  bathing  facilities,  and  the 
proximity  of  excellent  markets, 
make  this  perfectly  feasible.  But 
change  is  wise,  if  it  can  be  com- 
73 


passed.  Home  seems  always 
sweeter  when  one  returns  to  it 
after  an  absence  than  when  one 
stays  in  it  always.  From  the 
inexpensive  farmhouse,  where 
plain  and  good  fare  may  be  had, 
to  the  inn  of  high  prices  and  many 
luxuries,  there  is  wide  room  for 
choice.  Many  families  in  these 
days  transform  the  home  as  an 
integer  in  the  vacation,  taking 
camp  equipage  and  establishing 
themselves  in  tents  for  an  interval 
of  simplicity  and  healthful  out- 
door life,  of  "roughing  it"  in  the 
woods,  and  of  doing  without 
appliances  which  at  home  are 
essential.  Or  they  hire  a  cot- 
tage, furnished  or  the  reverse,  and 
transfer  the  housekeeping  thereto. 
This  is  an  admirable  way  to 
74 


•JB-IJ  .•'•••_i' ;« /T;  i>>--y-v';.. 


IDacation  flDontb, 


secure  a  fine  vacation  for  every- 
one except  the  mother,  whose 
cares  are  not  much  lightened,  and 
whose  regime  undergoes  slight 
modification. 

If  we  visit  friends  in  vacation, 
there  are  two  or  three  very  simple 
rules  to  be  observed.  We  must 
go  when  we  are  asked  and  ex- 
pected, and  take  leave  at  the  tune 
specified  in  our  invitation.  It  is 
customary  for  invitations  in  these 
days  to  state  definitely  the  time 
of  a  guest's  coming  and  going. 
People  who  entertain  many 
friends  find  it  desirable  to  arrange 
a  schedule,  so  that  congenial  per- 
sons may  come  together,  that 
servants  be  not  unduly  taxed, 
and  that  the  guest  rooms  be  ready 
and  comfortable.  A  guest  must 
75 


be  pleased  and  appreciative  and 
contribute  pleasure  to  the  common 
stock,  must  observe  the  ways  of 
the  house,  at  times  efface  herself, 
and  be  agreeable  to  old  people 
and  children  under  the  roof  of  her 
hostess.  To  be  invited  to  one's 
home  is  the  finest  of  compliments, 
and  to  pass  a  vacation  in  making 
delightful  visits  is  to  taste  the 
honey  brew  of  affection  and  loving 
attention. 

The  essence  of  good  breeding 
is  in  unselfish  consideration  for 
others.  That  will  be  the  most 
successful  vacation  in  which  we 
have  made  others  happy,  in  which 
we  have  not  too  anxiously  dwelt 
on  our  own  wishes  and  needs, 
and  in  which  we  have  most 
earnestly  tried  to  live  according 
76 


Vacation  flDontb. 


to  the  pattern  set  us  by  the 
Man  of  Nazareth.  Only  as  we 
are  Christ-like  can  we  be  sure 
of  Christ's  peace,  whether  we 
work  or  rest. 


IFlearness  to  <3ob. 


ON    that    September    day, 
now   a  part   of  the  van- 
ished   past,     when    our 
whole  nation,   and    many    other 
nations  uniting  with  us  in  sym- 
pathy, paid  funeral  honors  to  our 
martyred  President,  the  beautiful 
hymn  of  Sarah  Flower  Adams  was 
sung   almost   around   the    globe. 
Street    bands    played    it,    hard- 
handed     laborers     and     swarthy 
miners  sang  it,   spoiled   children 
of  fashion  joined  in  its  lofty  strain, 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  learned 
79 


and  the  unlearned,  moved  by  a 
common  sentiment,  touched  by 
a  common  emotion,  joined  in  the 
rhythm  of  "  Nearer,  My  God,  to 
Thee!"  One  heard  it  in  the 
churches,  in  the  homes,  in  the 
schools.  For  the  moment  it  took 
precedence  of  "America."  It  was 
the  national  hymn  of  the  republic, 
the  hymn  that  in  the  last  hours 
had  comforted  Mr.  McKinley,  the 
hymn  that  expressed  in  crystalli- 
zation, the  devotion,  the  love  and 
longing  of  millions  of  aching 
hearts. 

"  Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee, 

Nearer  to  Thee; 
E'en  though  it  be  a  cross 

That  raiseth  me, 
Still  all  my  song  shall  be 
Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee, 

Nearer  to  Thee!" 

80 


What  is  nearness  to  God?  The 
question  is  a  pertinent  one  to  us 
as  we  stand,  some  of  us  in  life's 
morning  prime,  some  in  its  fervid 
noon,  some  almost  home.  May 
we  be  conscious  in  the  pressure 
of  daily  care,  and  hi  our  joys  and 
sorrows  as  they  come,  that  God 
is  near  us,  and  we  are  near  him? 

In  the  experience  of  friendship 
between  loving  hearts  in  the  house- 
hold, there  is  nearness,  in  pro- 
portion as  there  is  union,  and  as 
sympathy  in  work  and  thought 
strengthens  the  bond.  When  we 
love  an  earthly  friend  so  dearly 
that  our  first  impulse  is  to  give 
him  pleasure,  our  most  earnest 
and  urgent  desire  is  to  do  his  will, 
then  to  that  friend  we  are  near. 
Estrangement  brings  remoteness. 
81 


If  there  creep  in  stealthily  to  the 
sweetest  relation,  indifference, 
apathy,  or  weariness,  the  sense 
of  nearness  ceases.  Equally  if 
there  arise  hostility,  anger,  war- 
fare, there  is  an  end  of  nearness, 
which  implies  confidence,  inti- 
macy and  peace. 

Using  this  as  illustrative,  we 
may  discern  how  a  soul  can  drift 
away  from  the  heavenly  Father, 
becoming  so  occupied  with  the 
world  and  its  pursuits  that  there 
will  be  no  wish  for  God,or  engaging 
in  ambitions,  which  are  in  antago- 
nism to  the  Divine  purpose  and 
nature,  may  range  itself  on  the 
side  of  Satan.  Among  the  crowds 
who  sang  "Nearer,  My  God,  to 
Thee, "in  their  deep  bereavement 
of  heart  when  our  President  was 
82 


taken,  were  persons  of  both  these 
types.  Perhaps  the  hymn  inter- 
posed a  wedge  between  their  lower 
and  higher  selves ;  perhaps  it  gave 
to  some  a  dawning  perception  of 
what  it  might  be  to  share  the 
Christian's  hope,  the  Christian's 
faith,  the  Christian's  joy. 

"  Though,  like  the  wanderer 

The  sun  gone  down, 
Darkness  be  over  me, 

My  rest  a  stone, 
Yet  in  my  dreams  I'd  be 
Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee, 

Nearer  to  Thee." 

None  can  be  near  to  God  in  the 
subconsciousness  of  waking  or 
sleeping  hours,  in  whom  there 
does  not  abide  all  the  while  a 
principle  of  reverence  and  a  con- 
tinual trust.  The  lad  who  saw 
angels  ascending  and  descending 
83 


ttbe  3opf ul  Olife. 


on  the  ladder  let  down  from  the 
sky  was  a  sinful  being,  capable  of 
great  meanness,  most  imperfect, 
most  unworthy,  and  at  the  very 
time  of  his  dream  of  heaven  an 
exile  from  home,  in  flight  because 
of  a  wrong  committed  against  his 
brother.  But  notwithstanding  all 
this,  he  was  a  devout  believer, 
and  from  his  youth  up  he  remained 
so.  We  cannot  read  the  story  of 
Jacob  without  observing  that  at 
no  period  of  his  career  was  he  an 
alien  from  God.  So  God  cared 
for  him  lovingly  as  he  lay  down 
in  the  desert,  and  his  sleep  was 
radiant  with  a  vision  from  the  rifted 
canopy  of  stars  above  his  head. 
We  may  grow  in  nearness  to 
God  in  several  ways,  but  we  must 
be  assured  that  we  long  for  and 


nearness  to  (Bot>* 


appreciate  the  state  in  which,  like 
Enoch,  we  walk  with  him,  or  we 
shall  stay  contentedly  on  a  lower 
level.  Aspiration  precedes  en- 
deavor. Vision  is  the  precursor 
of  effort.  It  was  said  by  the 
Master,  of  the  pure  in  heart,  that 
they  should  see  God.  If  any 
man  sees,  if  any  man  have  eyes, 
opened  to  the  glory  and  the  beauty, 
the  wisdom  and  the  love  of  the 
Father,  that  man  will  seek  after 
him.  The  love  of  the  world  and 
the  love  of  the  Father  cannot 
abide  together  in  the  same  soul. 
When  the  dominant  motive  is 
to  know  the  will  of  the  Lord  and 
intense  determination  to  serve 
him,  there  will  be  what  old-fash- 
ioned disciples  used  to  talk  about, 
growth  in  grace. 
85 


Aspiration  will  not  waste  itself 
in  mere  poetic  thought,  if  it  be 
true.  The  soul  that  aspires,  prays. 
The  more  earnestly  and  constantly 
one  prays,  the  closer  will  be  the 
approach  to  God.  Prayer  is  not 
only  asking  for  blessings,  it  is  in 
itself  a  blessing  and  a  privilege, 
and  when  one  truly  prays  one  is 
aware  of  uplift,  of  strength,  of 
courage  and  of  power.  Enter 
into  thy  closet,  and  shut  thy 
door,  and  pray  to  thy  Father, 
and  thy  Father,  which  seeth  in 
secret,  shall  reward  thee  openly. 

After  aspiration  what?  Natu- 
rally in  sequence,  endeavor.  Do- 
ing the  will  of  God,  doing  it  in 
little  things,  doing  it  wherever 
he  has  placed  us.  In  the  shop, 
in  the  kitchen,  on  the  highway. 
86 


•Clearness  to  (Bob. 


Not  always  is  the  service  one  we 
would  choose,  but  if  God  choose 
it  for  us,  we  are  not  reluctant ;  we 
try  to  obey.  Often  the  task  is 
set  for  us  in  a  lowly  place,  a  place 
of  great  obscurity.  No  matter. 
If  God  sent  us  down  in  the  dark, 
his  candle  will  light  our  every 
step.  What  does  it  mean  to  you 
or  me,  that  day  by  day  we  find 
opportunities  growing  out  of  the 
soil  of  humility,  like  forget-me- 
nots  on  the  bank  of  the  rippling 
stream,  if  not  that  God  is  assign- 
ing us  the  daily  work,  and  that 
in  his  view  every  place  is  honor- 
able in  which  he  uses  our  hands. 
What  cheer  and  gladness  we  find 
in  following  the  Master,  even 
when  the  clouds  gather  thickly 
and  the  cross  weighs  heavily. 
87 


Ube  Jovful  Xite, 


For,  dear  friends,  when  the  cross 
is  most  a  burden,  it  is  also  most  a 
lever,  lifting  us  skyward. 

The  temptation  to  seclude  one's 
self  from  the  activities  and  con- 
tacts of  the  world,  and  to  step 
aside  and  stay  in  the  cloister  has 
come  to  many  a  child  of  God. 
But,  unless  He  himself  shuts  the 
door  and  puts  a  hedge  around  one, 
nearness  to  him  is  not  thus  surely 
found.  The  devil  can  penetrate 
into  the  cell,  and  thoughts  wander 
even  in  the  brooding  hush  of  the 
sanctuary.  Rather  shall  we  win 
our  way  to  him  by  placing  our- 
selves at  his  disposal,  and  discover 
new  surprises  of  his  love  by  living 
where  we  may  bring  others  to  know 
the  fulness  of  the  Lord's  kindness. 

Possibly,  for  some  of  us,  the 
88 


_    '•  ' 


nearness  to  <3oo. 


path  into  the  presence  chamber 
lies  by  the  milestone  marked 
"  Giving."  What  self-denial  is  in- 
volved in  our  gifts?  Do  we  cheer- 
fully bestow  some  regular  portion 
of  the  income  we  receive  that  the 
Lord's  work  may  prosper?  Do 
we  contribute  our  time,  our  inter- 
est, our  influence?  They  who  give 
liberally  to  any  cause  feel  a  per- 
sonal enthusiasm  for  it,  which  is 
unknown  unless  they  have  some- 
thing invested.  The  cause  to 
which  we  give  nothing  is  not  dear, 
does  not  belong  to  us.  When 
we  deny  ourselves  joyfully  for 
Christ,  we  realize  that  he  is  our 
friend.  We  say,  as  never  before, 
"I  am  my  Beloved's,  and  my 
Beloved  is  mine."  Often  our 
best  way  to  give  is  through  an 

89 


established  agency  which  carries 
on  a  larger  work  than  the  indi- 
vidual can  undertake;  through  the 
society  which  disseminates  gospel 
literature,  or  sends  the  word  of 
God  to  those  who  need  it,  or  starts 
churches  and  Sunday  schools  in 
frontier  settlements,  or  sends  mis- 
sionaries to  far  lands  across  the 
sea.  Where  we  cannot  go  our  repre- 
sentatives may,  if  we  care  enough 
to  furnish  the  means,  and  as  we 
worship  the  Lord  in  our  giving,  we 
grow  into  such  acquaintance  with 
him,  that  our  quiet  homes  are  true 
Beth-els,  houses  where  God  dwells. 

"Or,  if  on  joyful  wing 

Cleaving  the  sky, 
Sun,  moon,  and  stars  forgot, 

Upward  I  fly. 
Still  all  my  song  shall  be, 
Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee, 
Nearer  to  Thee." 
90 


With  its  final  burst  of  blissful 
anticipation  the  beautiful  and  fa- 
miliar hymn  carries  us  up  to  the 
gates  of  the  city  of  gold.  Its 
climax  is  one  of  grand,  sweeping 
movement  and  majesty.  From 
our  birth  we  have  had  constant 
occasion  to  thank  God  for  his 
unremitting,  never-ceasing  provi- 
dential goodness,  new  every  morn- 
ing, and  fresh  every  evening.  If 
we  are  ready  to  drop  into  a  mood 
of  pessimism,  a  good  tonic  will  be 
found  in  recounting  our  reasons 
for  gratitude.  They  will  always 
amaze  us  by  their  number.  The 
disposition  in  most  of  us  to  ex- 
aggerate our  difficulties  and  to 
linger  in  the  shadow  of  our  dis- 
couragements clouds  much  of  our 
sunshine,  and  it  is  well  to  stop 
91 


Xif e. 


now  and  then  and  think  over  all 
the  bright  things.  When  we  are 
most  grateful,  then  are  we  nearest 
to  God. 

Suppose  we  pause  and  take  an 
inventory  in  this  informal  talk, 
of  our  reasons  for  happiness.  Let 
us  not  even  glance  at  those  things 
which  may  appear  depressing. 
What  are  our  assets  in  the  line 
of  satisfaction?  Shall  we  count 
health  as  one  of  them?  The  doc- 
tor's visits  to  us  have  been  few 
and  far  between  in  the  months 
that  are  passed.  Our  children 
are  vigorous  and  their  school  life 
is  seldom  interrupted.  Our  homes 
are  cheery.  The  circle  of  bright 
heads  around  the  lamp  has  not 
been  lately  broken  by  illness,  or 
by  death.  We  often  have  good 

92 


news  from  our  absent  ones.  The 
boy  in  business  has  the  approval 
of  his  employer.  The  girl  in  high 
school  or  at  college  is  diligent 
and  faithful.  There  is  always 
reason  for  thanksgiving  in  being 
able  to  work,  and  in  having  work 
to  do.  Those  who  are  idle  wil- 
fully lose  half  the  joy  of  existence. 
Those  who  are  idle  compulsorily 
are  objects  of  compassion. 

In  our  personal  history,  that 
unwritten  history  which  only  God 
knows  wholly,  we  have  reasons 
daily  multiplied  for  giving  him 
praise,  especially  for  the  many, 
many  times  when  we  have  been 
able  by  his  help  to  vanquish  the 
adversary  and  to  overcome  the 
sin  that  doth  most  easily  beset 
us!  How  often  have  we  felt  the 
93 


Ube  3o£tul  Xtfe. 


strong  hand  of  the  unseen  Friend, 
helping  us  when  we  were  in  ex- 
tremity. For  all  his  mercies  shall 
we  not  praise  and  bless  his  name 
always,  and  thus  dwell  in  sweet 
nearness  to  him? 

"  For  the  love  that  never  fails  to  us, 

For  the  grace  that  ever  guides, 
For  the  comfort  of  his  leading 

When  the  soul  in  him  confides. 
Here  we  thank  and  praise  the  giver 

Of  the  good  that  ever  comes 
Daily,  like  a  flowing  river, 

Blessing  happy  hearts  and  homes." 

I  think  the  Christian  who  has  no 
sweet  experience  of  living  near 
the  Lord,  has  never  risen  to  the 
blessedness  of  privilege  to  which 
he  has  a  right.  The  King  will 
give  royally  if  we  will  receive, 
but  we  ask  like  paupers.  We  are 
willing  to  take  the  beggar's  crust, 
94 


I 


feasting. 
more  earnestly 
more  joyfully 


WITH    December    comes 
the    beautiful   consum- 
mation   of    the     year. 
Behind  us  lie  Autumn  with  her 
varied  splendor  of   coloring  and 
her  rich  fruitage,   Summer  with 
her  pomp  of  bloom  and  wealth 
of  golden  grain,  Spring  with  her 
sweetness  of  blossom  and  tender 
atmosphere    of    hope    and    love. 
Before   us   as   December's   doors 
swing  wide  are  days  of  cold  and 
storm,    frost,    snow,    sleet,    wild 
97 


winds  by  sea  and  shore,  but  there 
also  stretches  invitingly  a  pro- 
cession of  happy  mornings  and 
evenings  at  home,  and  best  of  all, 
December  brings  us  Christmas. 
Christmas,  the  world's  great  fes- 
tival, gathering  to  itself,  as  the 
months  and  years  go  by,  the 
sacred  associations  which  cluster 
fore^'  -::•  around  the  incarnation, 
is  our  gladdest  anniversary,  be- 
cause we  keep  it  as  Christ's  birth- 
day. It  does  not  matter  in  the 
least  whether  December  twenty- 
fifth  is,  or  is  not,  the  precise  day 
on  which  Mary  first  held  her  baby 
in  her  arms,  while  shepherds  and 
wise  men  worshiped  him.  On 
some  day  in  the  long  history  of 
this  earth,  the  fulness  of  time 
came,  and  God  sent  into  it  his  only 
98 


begotten  Son,  on  a  mission  of 
redemption.  By  common  con- 
sent this  day  we  keep  as  Christmas 
has  been  selected  as  that  anniver- 
sary, and  all  nations  are  joining 
in  the  acclaim  which  arises  in  its 
hallowed  dawning  to  praise  Im- 
manueFs  name. 

Still  let  us  joyfully  listen  on 
Christmas  Eve,  as  the  midnight 
hour  passes,  for  the  echoes  of  the 
angel's  song,  "Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest,  on  earth  peace,  good 
will  to  men."  Still  let  us  watch 
with  the  wise  men  of  old  and  see 
the  star,  "brightest  and  best  of 
the  sons  of  the  morning."  Still 
let  us  bring  to  the  manger  our 
gifts,  gold  and  frankincense  and 
myrrh.  For  now,  as  when  Christ 
came  to  Bethlehem,  he  comes 
99 


to  be  born  again  in  human  hearts, 
and  evermore  we  may  sing: 

"  Thy  home  is  with  the  humble,  Lord, 

The  simple  are  thy  rest; 
Thy  lodging  is  in  childlike  hearts, 
And  there  thou  mak'st  thy  nest." 


There  is  special  fitness  in  that 
observance  of  Christmas  which 
centralizes  the  happiness  of  child- 
hood. To  those  of  us  who  love 
children,  they  constantly  reveal 
surprises  of  trust  and  possibilities 
of  rare  development.  We  under- 
stand why  our  Lord  set  a  child 
in  the  midst  of  the  disciples  and 
said,  "Whosoever  shall  not  re- 
ceive the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a 
little  child,  he  shall  not  enter 
therein."  Jesus  in  the  Yule-tide 
days  is  once  more  among  us  as  a 
child.  No  mere  mortal  child  so 
100 


pure,  so  docile,  so  wonderful  as 
he,  yet  in  very  deed  a  child,  subject 
to  his  parents,  and  living  beside 
his  fair  young  mother  in  her  little 
home  hi  Nazareth.  Looking  at 
hun,  as  the  Child  in  the  midst  of 
us,  we  are  led  to  look  more  care- 
fully and  with  gentler  thought- 
fulness  at  our  own  children  and 
at  the  hosts  of  children  outside 
our  own  households. 

What  is  our  first  impulse  to- 
ward the  little  ones  in  the  home? 
Most  of  us  without  an  instant's 
hesitation  answer  that  we  desire 
the  best  for  them,  the  best  in  edu- 
cation, in  training,  in  companion- 
ship, and  that  we  earnestly  long 
to  make  them  as  happy  as  we  can. 
Realizing  how  brief  a  period  hi 
life  childhood  must  be  and  how 
101 


soon  our  dear  boys  and  girls  must 
be  pushed  out  into  life  with  its 
trials  and  conflicts,  it  is  natural 
and  right  that  we  should  make 
the  children  happy.  We  do  this 
most  effectually  when  we  early 
impress  them  with  Christ's  beauty, 
when  we  teach  them  unselfish- 
ness, and  lead  them  in  the  straight 
and  narrow  pathway  of  love. 

When  we  load  the  Christmas 
tree  with  pretty  gifts  for  John 
and  Jean,  and  induce  them  for 
weeks  beforehand  to  tell  us  what 
they  want  and  what  they  hope 
to  receive,  entirely  overlooking 
their  part  in  Christmas  giving,  we 
do  them  a  wrong.  A  one-sided 
Christmas  cannot  be  joyful,  even 
to  a  little  child.  The  true  Christ- 
mas spirit  fosters  self-denial  and 
102 


bestowal,  and  the  child  who  makes 
no  small  or  large  sacrifice,  that  he 
may  send  a  present  to  some  one 
outside,  or  give  something  to  his 
mother  or  sister,  loses  a  precious 
opportunity  and  is  in  peril  of  being 
morally  dwarfed. 

Come  with  me  to  a  social  settle- 
ment on  the  East  side  of  the 
bustling  city  of  New  York  on 
Christmas  Eve.  Upstairs  and 
down  children  are  thronging,  for 
the  house  belongs  to  them,  and  is 
more  a  home  in  their  eyes  than 
the  tenements  where  they  sleep, 
and  snatch  such  meals  as  poverty 
can  give  them.  Here  they  are, 
fair-haired  Germans,  dark-eyed 
Hebrews,  blue-eyed  Danes,  oval- 
faced  Italians,  the  proportion  of 
whatever  nationality  is  upper- 
103 


most  in  the  locality  indicated  by 
the  type  most  numerous  among 
the  children.  They  have  no  fine 
clothes,  though  few  of  them  are 
in  rags,  for  the  tenement  mother 
has  her  own  decent  pride,  and 
does  her  best  to  send  her  offspring 
forth  whole,  if  not  clean,  from  her 
hands.  But  how  cheerful  they 
are,  how  beatific  is  their  rapture, 
how  charming  is  the  look  of 
motherhood  in  the  faces  of  little 
girls,  as  they  lovingly  brood  over 
their  new  dolls,  and  how  delighted 
are  the  boys  with  skates,  balls 
or  sleds!  When  they  sing,  their 
whole  hearts  are  poured  out  in  the 
hymns,  and  few  hearts  in  the 
round  world  are  more  intensely 
joyful. 

My  point  is  this,  that  not  only 
104 


Gbristmas 


we,  who  are  grown-up,  should 
add  to  our  Christmas  felicity  by 
making  some  asylum,  or  working- 
girls'  club,  or  settlement,  able 
to  cheer  its  beneficiaries  at  Christ- 
mas, but  that  we  should  bring 
up  our  children  in  the  habit  of  good 
will.  Every  little  one  in  a  home 
replete  with  comfort  should  early 
learn  that  he  or  she  can  help  to 
brighten  the  lot  of  a  child  who  is 
less  well  off,  of  a  child  whose  little 
feet  are  treading  stormy  path- 
ways. The  Sunday-school  that 
foregoes  its  own  annual  treat, 
in  order  that  it  may  provide 
one  for  a  school  elsewhere,  will, 
on  the  whole,  have  a  more  delight- 
ful and  satisfactory  Christmas 
than  the  one  which  simply  absorbs 
all  that  the  fathers  and  mothers  of 
105 


the  church,  and  its  short-sighted 
teachers  will  give  it. 

Let  us  broaden  out  a  little 
more.  Christmas  to  some  of  us 
brings  great  store  of  useful  and 
beautiful  souvenirs,  some  of  them 
very  costly,  others  inexpensive. 
To  give  away  what  has  been  given 
to  us  is  usually  regarded  as  ex- 
ceedingly ungracious,  and  there 
are  many  friendly  tokens,  so  per- 
sonal and  so  exclusively  designed 
for  their  recipients,  that  they  pass 
into  the  realm  of  sweet  happen- 
ings and  dear  memories  and  belong 
to  our  treasured  things.  But  of 
the  lovely,  even  exquisite  cards 
and  leaflets  and  books  which  we 
receive,  a  large  number  might 
well  be  enjoyed  and  passed  on. 
To  the  children  in  a  mission  school 
106 


far  across  the  sea,  to  the  parson- 
age home  on  our  Western  frontier, 
to  the  children  in  a  mountain 
cabin  in  Tennessee,  our  super- 
fluities of  Christmas  gladness  and 
gifts  might  bring  great  pleasure. 
Keep  this  hint  in  mind  for  another 
year,  and  let  the  children  know 
that  if  they  do  not  abuse  or  destroy 
their  own  gifts,  but  keep  them  in 
measurably  good  order,  they  may 
be  sent  by  and  by,  when  they  have 
outgrown  them,  to  give  another 
lease  of  delight  to  other  children, 
perhaps  under  another  sky. 

Leaving  this  phase  of  Christ- 
mas, in  this  discursive  talk,  sup- 
pose we  glance  at  Christmas  orna- 
mentation. Not  now  is  the  hour 
of  the  frail  anemone,  of  the  white 
lily,  of  the  fragrant  rose.  Not 
107 


even  the  hollyhock,  the  gentian, 
the  chrysanthemum,  or  any  of 
the  magnificent  flowers  of  the 
fall,  belong  of  right  to  Christmas. 
No,  we  decorate  our  homes  and 
churches  in  December  with  the 
strong  deep  green  of  the  cedar,  fir 
and  pine,  with  the  glossy  leaf  and 
the  shining  scarlet  berry  of  the 
holly,  with  the  beaded  whiteness 
of  the  mistletoe  peeping  out  from 
sheltering  leaves,  with  the  spoils 
of  the  woods  and  the  unfading 
glory  of  the  evergreen. 

Ages  ago  it  was  written  of  the 
good  man,  "His  leaf  also  shall  not 
wither,  and  whatsoever  he  doeth 
shall  prosper."  In  the  deep  dark 
green  of  Christmas  wreaths  and 
the  spicy  scent  of  Christmas  gar- 
lands, there  is  the  renewal  in  our 
108 


minds  of  this  assurance  of  the 
ultimate  success  and  prosperity 
of  the  man  who  lives  to  do  God's 
will.  True,  to  such  an  one  there 
may  come  ups  and  downs,  and 
many  strange  reverses  and  vicis- 
situdes. The  cedar  of  Lebanon 
was  not  raised  in  a  hothouse.  The 
tree  that  is  strong  and  tough  and 
fair  and  full  of  fadeless  leaves  on 
sturdy  boughs  was  nurtured  under 
the  stars  and  sun,  rocked  by  the 
tempest,  powdered  by  the  snow, 
and  tried  by  the  fierceness  of  the 
north  wind.  But  as  nothing  can 
permanently  hurt  "the  tree  God 
plants,"  so,  if  we  love  God,  noth- 
ing can  harm  us,  but  all  things 
shall  work  together  for  our  good. 
Choosing  our  Christmas  presents 
is  one  of  the  most  exciting  and  on 
109 


xtte. 


the  whole  delightsome  occupa- 
tions of  the  year.  Women  get 
much  more  satisfaction  out  of 
this  than  men,  the  latter  being 
too  busy,  as  a  rule,  to  give  to  it 
the  time  and  thought  which  it 
requires.  On  the  other  hand,  men 
often  have  a  legitimate  occasion 
for  complaint,  in  the  fact  that 
the  gifts  to  them  of  their  wives 
and  daughters  are  frequently  far 
from  individual.  A  man  is  given 
something  that  fills  a  felt  want 
in  his  wife's  mind,  a  piece  of  fur- 
niture, or  a  picture,  or  some  bric- 
a-brac  which  helps  to  furnish  the 
parlor  or  dining-room.  He  amiably 
accepts  it,  but  it  has  contributed 
little  to  his  real  pleasure.  Both 
men  and  women,  if  they  enlist  in 
the  campaign  of  Christmas  giving, 
110 


Cbristmas  Dolls* 

should  select  their  offerings  with 
discretion,  judgment  and  adapta- 
tion to  the  tastes  and  needs  of  the 
one  whom  they  desire  to  please. 

A  merry,  merry  Christmas 

To  all  who  tread  to-day 
The  age-long  road  to  Bethlehem 

Where  once  our  Saviour  lay — 
A  little  child  in  swaddling  clothes 

While  cattle  near  him  lowed; 
And  in  the  sky  above  his  head 

The  Star  of  centuries  glowed. 

A  merry,  merry  Christmas 

To  every  weary  heart 
That  brings  its  load  of  care  to  One 

Who  in  our  grief  has  part; 
A  merry  Christmas  to  the  soul 

That  lowly  bows  to  him, 
Before  whose  face  the  seraphim 

Grow  in  their  whiteness  dim. 

A  merry  Christmas  unto  all 

Who  open  wide  the  door, 
That  Jesus  Christ  may  enter  in 

And  dwell  forever  more. 
Exalted  be  his  wondrous  name, 

And  glory  be  his  own; 
Who  conquered  sin  and  death  for  us, 

And  sits  upon  the  throne. 
Ill 


A  merry,  merry  Christmas 

To  every  little  child, 
Who  clasps  the  hand  of  Jesus, 

And  loves  the  undefiled, 
And  may  the  light  of  Christmas 

From  heaven's  fair  palace  stream 
And  all  the  year  be  brighter  in 

Its  radiant  living  gleam. 


:Unto  us  a  child  is  born,  unto 
us  a  son  is  given;  and  the  govern- 
ment shall  be  upon  his  shoulder: 
and  his  name  shall  be  called 
Wonderful,  Counsellor,  the  Mighty 
God,  the  Everlasting  Father,  the 
Prince  of  Peace." 

Dear  friends,  may  the  next 
Christmas  bring  you  and  me  into 
closer  and  sweeter  relationship 
than  ever  before  to  Christ  our 
Lord. 


Xife's  Iflpe  anb  H)owns. 


IF  life  were  a  uniform  level, 
broken  by  no  vicissitudes  and 
no  disasters,  with  no  strange  and 
baffling  problems  alternating  with 
its  seasons  of  tranquillity  and  suc- 
cess, it  would  be  perhaps  less  trying 
than  it  generally  is,  but  also  much 
less  interesting.  Nothing  is  more 
tedious  than  monotony.  Nothing 
wears  on  the  nerves  like  a  stirless 
calm.  The  wildest  gusts  and  storms 
are  more  acceptable  to  the  mariner 
than  the  inaction  which  is  compul- 
sory when  the  wind  moves  not. 
113 


I  once  met  an  old,  old  lady, 
who  said  that  her  whole  life  had 
been  as  placid  as  a  summer  sea. 
At  long  intervals  some  member 
of  her  family  had  died,  but  as  she 
had  no  children  the  most  intimate 
and  deep  of  afflictions  had  been 
spared  her,  and  her  husband  still 
survived.  Strange  to  say,  I  did 
not  feel  that  she  was  to  be  envied. 
Without  pain  in  this  world's 
economy  there  is  little  reaching 
forward  to  the  heights  of  joy; 
without  suffering  there  is  seldom 
intensity  of  thankfulness;  without 
birth-throes  there  is  little  apparent 
growth  in  the  spiritual  realm. 
Life  all  a  plain  road,  no  hills  to 
climb,  no  obstacles  to  surmount, 
no  vicissitudes  to  endure,  is  not 
so  desirable  on  the  whole,  as  life 

114 


Xife's  Taps  ano  Downs. 

which  has  its  struggles,  its  sorrows 
and  its  losses,  preliminary  as  they 
come  to  the  final  realization  of 
its  triumphs,  its  consolations  and 
its  everlasting  gains. 

The  time  for  sturdy  resistance 
to  the  difficulties  and  temptations 
of  the  day  is  usually  the  period 
of  youth,  when  one  is  facing  the 
future,  as  well  as  realizing  the 
present,  and  when  the  past  does 
not  loom  large  in  one's  view.  The 
past  of  youth  is  very  short;  the 
future  looks  interminable,  and 
the  immediate  present  is  stren- 
uous. Middle  age  often  carries 
the  burdens  which  youth  has 
brought  to  it,  carries  them  with 
a  steadfast  courage,  and  a  serene 
cheer  impossible  to  youth ;  and  old 
age  is,  or  should  be,  the  season 
115 


K 


of  tranquillity :  the  season  of  rest- 
ing on  the  oars  and  waiting  for 
the  end. 

"Sunset  and  evening  star 

And  one  clear  call  for  me, 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar 
When  I  put  out  to  sea." 


In  retrospective  hours  we  some- 
times perceive  that  we  made  mis- 
takes in  our  bygone  reckonings. 
We  might  have  avoided  some 
snares  and  pitfalls  had  we  not 
rushed  along  at  a  break-neck 
pace.  We  might  have  been  less 
impulsive,  and  made  wiser  calcu- 
lations, and  taken  precautions 
against  disaster.  But  what  is  the 
use  of  grieving  unduly  over  what 
is  past  retrieval?  Better  far  to  be 
"up  and  doing  with  a  heart  for 
116 


Xffe's  "dps  aut>  H>owns. 


any  fate."  The  past  is  gone,  but 
the  present  is  ours. 

An  elderly  gentlewoman  was 
talking  with  me  one  day  about  the 
fortunes  and  misfortunes  of  her 
family.  " There  was  a  time,"  she 
said,  "when  my  father  owned 
the  entire  tract  of  land  in  which 
the  city  of  L—  (a  thriving 
Western  city)  now  stands.  Had 
he  held  on  to  it  till  values  rose 
we  would  now  be  enormously 
wealthy  instead  of  being  worn 
out  with  poverty,  but  father  did 
not  imagine  its  possibilities,  and 
exchanged  the  property  for  land 
that  proved  to  be  worth  very 
little." 

I  know  of  similar  instances. 
They  have  been  very  common  in 
this  new  and  rapidly  developing 
117 


Xife. 


country.  And  almost  invariably 
I  have  heard  heirs  of  what-might- 
have-been  speak  of  the  vanished 
riches  that  had  eluded  their  grasp 
with  the  deepest  regret.  Yet, 
as  we  glance  around  our  acquaint- 
ances, we  do  not  always  find 
that  wealth  and  luxury  have 
brought  the  best  things  in  their 
train.  Young  men  have  degener- 
ated, young  women  have  been 
led  into  selfishness  and  frivolity 
through  a  too  easy  life  and  the 
possession  of  too  much  money. 
My  friend,  whose  sons  and  daugh- 
ters were  noble  men  and  women, 
need  not  have  deplored  the  fact 
that  they  had  been  reared  in  a 
school  where  the  students  acquire 
self-reliance  by  some  bouts  with 
adversity. 

118 


Xife's  Taps  ano  Downs* 


If  one  can  but  take  whatever 
comes  as  part  of  God's  plan,  and 
not  as  the  happening  of  a  blind 
chance,  one  will  be  surer  of  con- 
tent. A  plan  of  God  in  every  life, 
and  life  joyfully  lived  in  accord- 
ance with  God's  plan,  is  a  good 
formula  for  true  happiness. 

Suppose  we  fancy,  in  this  twi- 
light between  times  talk,  how  one 
may  make  the  best  of  things  in 
the  days  of  the  Valley  of  Hu- 
miliation. You  remember  that 
Bunyan's  pilgrim  went  through 
this  place  singing  quaintly, 

"  He  that  is  down  need  fear  no  fall : 

He  that  is  low,  no  pride; 
He  that  is  humble  ever  shall 
Have  God  to  be  his  guide." 

And   you    remember,    too,    that 

in  those  gentle  glades,  the  Heart's 

119 


Ease  was  very  apt  to  flourish? 
There  are  worse  places  on  the 
pilgrimage  than  this  sheltered  vale, 
where  one  has  much  occasion  to 
rest  in  and  call  on  God  every 
hour. 

Once,  away  back  in  the  years 
that  are  sweetest  to  recall,  I  knew 
a  group  of  people,  mother  and 
daughters,  whom  our  Civil  War 
had  despoiled  of  their  all.  They 
lived  in  two  or  three  rooms,  though 
theirs  had  been  a  wide  and  stately 
mansion.  They  did  then*  own 
work  merrily,  though  a  retinue 
had  formerly  served  them.  They 
were  in  need  of  clothing,  some- 
tunes  in  need  of  fuel,  sometimes 
of  food.  But  I  never  saw  them 
otherwise  than  gay  of  aspect  and 
brightly  ready  to  meet  every  ex- 
120 


"v/> 

m 


Xife's  TUps  ant)  Downs. 


perience  with  a  smile.  It  was 
not  resignation  they  showed,  nor 
fortitude,  nor  even  courage.  It 
was  a  combination  of  the  three 
qualities,  and  the  element  that 
fused  it  was  an  unfaltering  re- 
ligious faith.  One  morning  an 
acquaintance  and  I  met  in  a  call 
at  their  house.  When  we  came 
away  this  lady  said  severely: 

"Well,  I  call  such  conduct  rep- 
rehensible. Those  women  should 
have  been  sewing,  making  up  that 
bolt  of  cloth  the  society  sent 
them  last  week.  Scissors  haven't 
touched  it  yet!  And  they  were 
reading,  if  you  please;  reading 
'Cowper's  Task'  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  'Tales  of  a  Grandfather.'" 

For  my  part  I  had  no  censure 
to  make.  In  due  time,  no  doubt, 
121 


tlbe 


the  white  muslin  was  fashioned 
into  useful  and  needed  garments, 
but  the  old  Southern  habit  of 
browsing  in  a  library,  of  reading 
over  and  over  the  books  made 
dear  by  the  use  and  wont  of  a  life- 
time was  more  precious  than  any 
article  a  woman's  fingers  could 
fabricate.  Those  ladies  were  not 
dependent  on  new  books.  Those 
which  they  had  inherited  from 
book-loving  ancestors  were  suffi- 
cient for  them,  and  they  had  cul- 
ture as  opposed  to  the  swift, 
superficial  intelligence  of  a  later 
day.  Years  after  I  met  them, 
now  on  the  top  wave  of  success. 
One  girl,  was  an  artist,  another 
an  author,  another  a  teacher,  and 
the  old  mother,  still  in  black  silk, 
with  lace  ruffles  at  neck  and  wrists, 
122 


OLife's  "dps  ano  Downs. 

continued  to  read  Cowper  and 
Sir  Walter  Scott  in  unbroken 
serenity. 

Ups  and  downs  in  life  are  like 
an  undulating  land.  In  America 
it  is  peculiarly  the  case  that  he 
or  she  who  is  down  to-day  may 
be  up  again  to-morrow.  Business 
reversals  and  successes  are  as 
recurrent  as  the  movement  of  a 
see -saw  in  commercial  towns. 
But  the  changes  of  feeling  and 
condition  which  are  consequent 
upon  wealth  or  its  opposite  are 
slight  compared  with  those  born 
of  the  inner  life.  Material  things 
are  less  potential  than  spiritual. 
Externals  never  strike  so  deeply 
into  the  soul  as  the  experiences 
which  spring  from  the  soul  itself. 
The  wounded  spirit  who  can  bear? 
123 


When  friends  prove  disappointing 
or  false,  when  the  beloved  wander 
into  wrong  pathways,  when  the 
heart  strays  from  its  childhood 
teachings  and  loses  its  first  love, 
when  the  chill  frost  of  doubt 
benumbs  faith,  then  one  learns 
what  real  distress  is.  When  one 
mournfully  says,  in  the  despair 
of  the  unmoored  and  shipwrecked 
hour,  "A  believing  heart  is  gone 
from  me,"  he  touches  the  bottom 
of  earthly  trouble.  Yet  here,  too, 
there  is  help  for  whoever  shall 
seek  and  accept  it  from  the  Word. 
"He  that  cometh  to  God  must 
believe  that  he  is,  and  that  he  is 
the  rewarder  of  them  that  dili- 
gently seek  him."  When  one, 
climbing  from  the  depths  of  hope- 
lessness and  infidelity,  gets  a  firm 
124 


m 


Xffe's  "dps  anfc  2>owns. 


footing  on  that  rock,  he  may 
ascend  at  last  to  the  uplands  of 
God,  where  he  shall  say,  "I  know 
whom  I  have  believed  and  am 
persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  keep 
that  which  I  have  committed 
unto  him  against  that  day." 

There  are  temperaments  which 
are  naturally  sanguine  and  even 
mercurial,  and  they  stand  their 
possessors  in  good  stead  in  many 
an  exigency.  Others  are  easily 
disturbed,  and  inordinately  de- 
pressed by  untoward  incidents. 
There  are  forward  folk  who  are 
fretful  and  cross  oftener  than  they 
are  amiable,  and  moody  folk 
whose  persistent  despondency  acts 
on  their  friends  as  a  wet  blanket. 

One  of  the  most  successful 
recipes  for  curing  the  blues,  no 
125 


matter  what  their  source,  is  to 
engage  actively  in  some  work 
outside  one's  self.  The  tonic  of 
necessary  labor  is  not  always 
within  reach  of  the  rich,  and  so, 
occasionally,  they  drift  into  apathy 
and  from  apathy  into  nervous 
prostration,  troubles  which  they 
would  escape  if  compelled  to  ex- 
ertion. Of  a  wretched  hypochon- 
driac, a  wise  physician  once  said, 
"She  would  soon  recover  if  she 
were  obliged  to  do  her  family 
washing."  Unselfish  work  for 
others  is  a  sovereign  remedy  for 
melancholy.  Forget  yourself.  Do 
good  to  some  one  else.  As  the 
poet  aptly  says, 

"  Is  thy  cruse  of  comfort  failing? 

Rise  and  share  it  with  another, 
And  through  all  the  years  of  famine 
It  shall  serve  thee  and  thy  brother." 
126 


Through  the  various  ups  and 
downs  of  a  very  uncertain  world, 
I  advise  people  to  cling  to  a  home 
of  their  own.  No  matter  how 
tiny  or  obscure  your  house,  live 
by  yourself  with  only  your  near- 
est of  kin,  if  you  possibly  can.  It 
is  forlorn  work  going  back  and 
forth  over  other  people's  stairs. 
Some  of  us  keep  house,  spread  the 
table,  buy  furniture,  choose  our 
street,  spend  our  money,  with  a 
view  to  what  our  neighbors  think 
and  say,  instead  of  with  refer- 
ence to  our  own  means  and  our 
honorable  independence;  in  which 
we  are  amazingly  foolish.  Living 
beyond  one's  income  is  a  fruitful 
occasion  for  down-heartedness, 
and  justly  so.  A  little  margin, 
be  it  ever  so  little,  insures  peace 
127 


of  mind  and  cheerfulness,  but  he  or 
she  who  is  on  the  ragged  edge  of 
financial  incertitude  cannot  be 
radiant. 

Amid  the  many  ups  and  downs 
of  earth,  is  it  not  as  well  to  re- 
member that  here  we  have  no 
continuing  city,  but  we  seek  one 
to  come,  and  so,  to  keep  fast  hold 
upon  heaven  and  God?  A  life 
allied  to  God  is  stable,  come  what 
may. 

We  are  not  left  to  rely  upon  mere 
sentiment  for  this  alliance.  We 
have  footholds  carved  in  the  up- 
hill road.  The  Saviour  has  trod- 
den it,  the  saints  have  followed 
him;  it  leads  to  the  light  that/ 
streams  from  the  Father's  house. 
The  Christian  who  lives  in  daily 
dependence  upon  God,  consciously, 
128 


Xife'8  "dps  an&  Downs. 


lovingly,  earnestly  calling  on  him 
for  aid  and  support  and  wis- 
dom, must  ultimately  be  victo- 
rious. 

Thoughtful  Bible  reading  is  a 
great  help  over  hard  places.  There 
are  so  many  parallel  cases  to  our 
own  in  the  wonderful  narratives 
of  the  Scriptures.  So  many  bits 
of  counsel,  adapted  to  our  needs, 
let  that  need  be  what  it  may.  So 
many  songs  in  the  night.  So 
often  a  feast  of  manna  for  the 
famished,  or  a  fountain  of  water 
springing  up  to  quench  the  thirst 
of  the  wayfarer.  I  wish  we  who 
read  oftener  memorized  the  clear 
words  of  truth,  and  that  children 
were  induced  to  lay  them  up  as 
a  part  of  their  mental  wealth. 
For  in  the  ups  and  downs  of 
129 


ttbe  Sogtul  %tfe. 


mortal  life  God's  word  is  an 
unfailing  cordial,  a  ceaseless  in- 
spiration, and  a  constant  promise 
of  his  presence  by  night  and  by 
day. 


H  Iftew  H?ear 
flfoebitation. 


P 
^ 


ONE    of    my    old    school- 
mates,  a  girl  who  used 
to     sit     at     the     same 
desk  with  me  when  we  were  in 
our  teens,  came  not  long  ago  to 
make  me  a  little  visit.     In  our 
different  ways  we  have  both  been 
very  busy  since  those  bright  days 
when  we  studied  French  verbs  and 
Latin  conjugations  together,  and 
dipped  into  mathematics  and  ex- 
plored ancient  history,  albeit  our 
school  was  only  a  seminary  for 
young  ladies,  and  the  era  of  the 
131 


Ube 


Xife. 


woman's  college  had  not  yet 
dawned.  In  passing,  let  me  say 
a  good  word  for  the  fidelity  of 
the  old-time  preceptors  and  the 
thoroughness  of  the  instruction 
they  imparted.  I  am  not  disposed 
to  undervalue  anything  in  the 
latter  curriculum,  but  there  were 
well-educated  women,  cultured, 
disciplined,  and  broadened  by 
their  intellectual  training,  before 
the  great  colleges  set  wide  doors 
open  for  the  entrance  of  girl- 
students.  After  all,  the  best  re- 
sult of  an  educational  course  is 
seen  in  its  success  in  putting 
tools  in  the  hand  for  use  in  the 
life-work,  and  in  the  symmetry 
with  which  it  develops  character. 
We  talked  late,  Miriam  and  I, 
just  as  we  did  in  our  twenties, 
132 


but  much  of  our  conversation 
was  retrospective.  So  many  of 
those  who  had  been  once  with  us 
had  gone  across  the  river  to  the 
blessedness  beyond.  So  many  of 
those  who  remained  were  in  far 
lands,  or,  in  the  activities  of  the 
world,  had  disappeared  from  our 
ken,  that  we  had  a  new  sense  of 
the  changefulness  and  loneliness 
of  this  earth. 

"I'm  a  pilgrim,  and  I'm  a  stranger, 
I  can  tarry,  I  can  tarry  but  a  night," 

means  more  to  us  now  than  it  did 

in  the  May  morning  of  our  youth. 

Miriam  is  a  bright,  breezy  person 

whose  heart  is  the  gayer  because 

she  is  the  mother  of  a  house  full 

of  children,  and  has  always  had 

young  people  about  her,  needing 

her  counsel   and   coming  to   her 

133 


for  the  settlement  of  her  vexed 
questions.  She  does  not  look  her 
real  age,  but  then  nobody  does 
that  any  longer;  we  are  all  ten 
years  younger  than  we  used  to 
be,  so  much  more  closely  do  we 
follow  the  laws  of  health,  and  so 
much  greater  is  the  ease  of 
modern  living,  what  with  labor- 
saving  contrivances  and  luxuries 
of  which  our  mothers  and  grand- 
mothers never  dreamed. 

I  remember  hearing  my  mother 
say  that  she  put  on  the  cap  which 
she  wore  when  she  was  past 
seventy  on  her  thirtieth  birthday. 
A  matron  whom  I  knew  when  I 
was  nineteen  said  soberly,  when 
she  was  thirty-four,  "I  am  now 
middle-aged.  I  must  lay  aside 
youthful  pomps  and  vanities." 
134 


flDe&itation. 


To-day,  the  woman,  married  or 
single,  who  is  under  forty  years  is 
a  young  woman,  and  her  looks 
convey  no  other  impression.  At 
fifty  the  gracious  lady  bears  her- 
self as  thirty-five  was  wont  to  do 
two  score  years  ago,  and  the 
active  person  of  sixty  is  far 
from  claiming  immunity  from 
service,  or  any  privileges  of  ease, 
on  account  of  her  age.  Miriam 
and  I  felicitated  ourselves  that 
this  is  the  golden  age  of  the  grand- 
mother. 

"  But,  my  dear,  "said  my  friend 
musingly,  "how  short  the  years 
are  getting  to  be.  Don't  you 
recall  what  a  long,  long  space  of 
time  a  year  was  when  we  were 
children?  On  a  New  Year's  Day, 
if  we  looked  forward  —  and  no 
135 


child  ever  looks  backward — the 
future  was  lost  in  dim  and  shroud- 
ing mists.  Now  twelve  months 
is  a  little  flitting  period,  which 
makes  one  think  of  the  simile  of 
a  bird  flying  through  a  lighted 
hall,  from  blackness  to  black- 
ness." 

"Well,"  I  answered,  "I  grant 
that  the  seasons  do  glide  faster 
with  one  than  of  old,  but  I  think 
it  is  simply  because  I  have  so 
much  to  do,  and  so  many  com- 
plex interests.  When  every  day 
is  filled  to  the  brim  and  the  days 
weave  themselves  into  weeks,  the 
weeks  into  months,  and  the 
months  into  years,  with  the  rap- 
idity of  the  unresting  loom,  what 
is  one  to  do?  Of  course,  your 
years  and  mine  slip  quickly  away. 
136 


H  Iftew  l^ear  flDefcitation. 


I  can  fancy,  however,  those  to 
whom  the  progress  of  time  is  slow 
enough,  even  in  old  age.  The 
man  who  was  once  in  the  midst  of 
affairs,  but  on  whom  a  creeping 
paralysis  has  set  its  fettering  hand ; 
the  woman  chained  to  her  bed  by 
a  cruelly  torturing  malady;  the 
prisoner  in  his  cell;  the  stranger 
lonely  among  strangers,  may  not 
find  the  years  so  swift.  Part  of 
the  restlessness  which  makes  some 
old  people  so  unhappy  is  no  doubt 
due  to  the  fact  that  their  empty 
days  have  grown  slow  and  drag- 
ging, that  there  is  no  flavor  left 
for  them  in  life's  cup.  People 
in  the  shadow  of  grief  always  suffer 
from  the  tedium  of  the  days. 
The  mourner's  days  move  at  a 
snail's  pace." 

137 


^§55 


Ube  3o£tul  OLife, 


Miriam  thought  this  was  true, 
and  for  a  while  we  were  silent. 
You  may  be  silent  with  an  in- 
timate friend,  and  the  need  to  be 
entertaining  of  set  purpose  is  non- 
existent between  those  whose 
mutual  understanding  is  flawless. 

After  a  while  she  said,  "  An- 
other year  is  coming.  Are  you 
making  any  new  departures,  any 
new  resolves?  There  is  something 
attractive  about  turning  the  fresh 
page,  isn't  there?" 

"With  Susan  Coolidge,  I  have 
long  felt  that  every  day  is  a  fresh 
beginning,  and  I  have  laid  aside 
the  habit,  if  I  ever  had  it,  of  cele- 
brating the  new  year  as  a  special 
place  for  good  resolutions.  I  do 
like,  though,  to  signalize  it  by  some 
particular  pleasure,  to  meet  my 
138 


H  IRew  3J)ear  /IDefcftatfon. 


friends  and  kinsfolk  then,  and 
to  exchange  greetings  and  good 
wishes  with  them.  If  the  cal- 
endar did  nothing  else,  it  would 
remind  us  that  the  chances  for 
making  our  beloved  ones  happy 
are  lessening,  and  that  we  ought 
to  avail  ourselves  of  every  coming 
opportunity  to  scatter  sunshine 
on  the  pathway  of  all  we  meet." 

"But,"  persisted  Miriam,  "you 
would  not  influence  others  to  pass 
by  a  New  Year's  milestone  with- 
out some  effort  to  start  anew  in 
the  Christian  race,  would  you? 
Suppose  you  were  talking  to  a 
crowd  of  students,  is  there  nothing 
you  could  suggest  as  very  apposite 
to  them  at  such  a  time?" 

"For  one  thing,"  I  said,  "I 
would  counsel  all  who  have  never 
139 


yet  done  it,  to  begin  on  January 
first  a  daily  definite  study  of  the 
Bible.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
Bible  study  just  now,  it  is  true, 
but  also,  in  hundreds  of  Christian 
homes,  and  by  thousands  of  young 
men  and  women,  the  Bible  is  a 
neglected  book.  The  young  peo- 
ple who  are  familiar  with  the 
Scriptures  are  not  too  numerous 
—those  I  mean  who  can  turn  at 
an  instant's  call,  without  hesita- 
tion or  embarrassment,  to  any 
reference  text  in  the  prophets,  the 
psalms,  or  the  New  Testament. 
We  live  in  an  age  of  much  literary 
enterprise,  when  the  printing-press 
scatters  new  books  as  the  forest 
trees  scatter  leaves  in  the  autumn ; 
when  newspapers  are  multitudin- 
ous, and  every  man,  woman  and 

140 


child  reads  something.  That 
many  otherwise  liberally  educated 
men  and  women  do  not  know  the 
Scriptures,  even  as  literature,  is  a 
misfortune,  for  they  are  a  treasury 
of  noble  words  in  many  incom- 
parable styles.  And,  by  search- 
ing them,  those  who  would  obtain 
eternal  life  still  are  rewarded  by  the 
Divine  Author.  Yes,  I  wish  I  could 
urge  the  young  people  of  our  land, 
wherever  they  are,  to  begin  to  read 
the  Bible  daily,  to  read  it  through 
in  course,  or  to  read  it  for  its  poetry, 
history,  and  philosophy.  I  wish 
they  would  read  it  for  the  life  of  the 
Master.  On  a  shelf  in  my  library 
are  many  lives  of  Christ,  but  none 
equals,  none  approaches,  the  life 
so  simply  revealed  in  the  gospels 
of  the  four  evangelists." 
141 


"What  besides  the  Bible,"  said 
Miriam,  "  would  you  suggest  for 
the  reading  of  a  bright,  ambitious 
boy,  or  of  a  girl  who  had  her  life 
before  her?" 

My  preference  is  strongly  for  a 
biography  over  most  other  books, 
but,  in  a  general  way,  I  would  tell 
a  young  reader  to  choose  what  was 
most  inviting,  only  securing  a 
little  regular  time  every  day  for 
some  thoughtful  reading.  Some 
like  essays,  many  more  enjoy 
stories,  and  we  get  the  most  profit, 
I  think,  when  our  reading  is  not 
perfunctory,  but  is  pleasurable 
and  recreative.  Libraries  abound, 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  any- 
body should  starve  when  the  table 
for  the  mind  is  so  free  and  so 
abundantly  spread." 
142 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 
H  mew  ]0ear  /IDeMtatfon. 


This  talk  of  ours  was  resumed 
on  another  occasion  when  Miriam 
and  I  were  not  alone.  A  clever 
young  girl  was  with  us,  and  she 
had  her  opinion  and  expressed 
it  very  earnestly. 

"I  know,"  she  said,  "what 
people  of  my  age  need,  and  that 
is  agreeable  companionship.  We 
are  restless  and  dissatisfied  unless 
we  are  in  the  midst  of  things.  I 
would  tell  every  one  I  knew,  espe- 
cially if  she  or  he  happened  to 
be  a  little  blue,  as  young  people 
often  are,  to  get  to  work,  not 
merely  in  wage -earning  work, 
though  for  many  that  is  a  necessity 
and  to  some  a  resource  and  duty, 
but  to  join  a  Christian  Endeavor 
Society,  or  an  Ep worth  League, 
or  the  King's  Daughters,  or  some 
143 


brotherhood,  or  friendly  society, 
and  give  to  it  the  best  one  could. 
A  good  time  to  join  the  procession 
of  Christian  workers  is  surely  the 
New  Year.  And,  if  one  is  already 
in,  but  has  been  a  laggard  or  un- 
faithful, may  there  not  be  wisdom 
in  reforming,  shaking  off  sloth 
and  beginning  over  with  enthu- 
siasm? I  do  think  young  people 
should  assist  their  pastors  more 
than  they  do,  and  what  better 
season  for  a  start  than  at  this 
very  time?  Those  who  have 
leisure  could  help  him  in  making 
calls  on  the  sick  or  the  lonely; 
others  could  enter  the  Sunday- 
school." 

So  spoke  Caroline,  and  we  older 
women  agreed  with  her.  Only 
as  we  give  in  this  world  do  we  get 


H  Hew  l^ear  /iDefcitation. 


good.  I  have  been  reading  tne 
life  of  a  great  missionary,  Verbeck 
of  Japan,  and  it  has  been  borne 
into  my  soul  that  the  only  life 
worth  living  is  the  life  of  Christian 
love.  It  may  be  spent,  as  the 
foreign  missionary's  is,  under  a 
distant  sky,  as  the  home  mis- 
sionary's and  colporter's,  in  the 
waste  places  of  our  own  great 
land,  as  the  minister's  in  his 
parish,  as  the  mother's  in  her 
household,  but  if  it  be  a  life  after 
the  fair  Christ-pattern,  it  will  be 
a  life  poured  out  for  others,  and 
therefore  very  blessed. 

Friends,  methinks  we  stand  in 
the  portal  of  another  year.  God 
gives  us  more  days,  more  weeks, 
how  many  or  how  few  we  know 
not,  but  they  are  sent  straight 
145 


from  heaven,  and  we  are  to  use 
them  for  him.  Have  we  made 
mistakes?  It  is  not  too  late  to 
rectify  them.  Have  we  committed 
sin?  We  may  find  cleansing  in 
the  fountain  where  all  uncleanli- 
ness  is  washed  away.  Have  we 
been  discouraged?  "As  thy  days, 
thy  strength  shall  be,"  is  the 
word  of  the  Lord  to  our  weariness 
and  faintness.  As  we  wait,  not 
knowing  what  shall  be  on  the 
morrow,  we  may  fill  the  measure 
of  to-day  with  contentment,  sur- 
render and  sweetness.  And  from 
the  sky  the  everlasting  Father, 
speaking  to  our  need,  says,  "Cer- 
tainly I  will  be  with  thee!" 

This  meditation  grows  too  long. 
But  I  have   one  more  practical 
suggestion,  and  that  concerns  the 
146 


H  IRew  JI>ear  /iDeMtation. 

storing  of  the  memory,  as  a  hive 
with  honey,  with  worth-while 
things  to  have  and  to  hold.  You 
would  find  it  much  to  your  profit, 
dear  reader,  to  study  by  heart 
at  least  one  verse  of  Scripture 
every  day  in  the  year,  to  learn  a 
few  noble  hymns,  and  to  fix  in 
your  minds  some  fine  strong 
thoughts  of  great  writers.  Mem- 
ory may  be  a  good  servant,  if 
trained,  not  only  in  early,  but 
in  later  days. 


147 


1FncompatibiIit\> 


AMONG  the  greatest  of  our 
smaller  trials,  if  the  para- 
dox may  be  pardoned,  must 
be  reckoned  incompatibility.    To 
live  hi  daily  contact  with  some  one 
whose  ideas  are  in  jarring  contrast 
with  your  own,  to  endure  the  moods 
and  tempers  of  a  person  who  rasps 
you  by  voice  and  emphasis  to  the 
point  of  a  continual  irritation,  is 
to  wear   the  medieval  hair-shirt, 
and  endure  the  medieval  scourge. 
A  sweet-faced  serene  saint  of  God, 
whose  way  in  life  lies  through  the 
149 


ttbe 


Xife. 


drudgery  of  a  New  England  kit- 
chen, once  confided  to  me,  in  a 
moment  of  supreme  dishearten- 
ment,  that  there  were  times  when 
she  longed  for  the  rest  of  the  grave, 
smiling,  as  she  added,  "I  am  per- 
fectly worn  out  by  the  compan- 
ionship of  Aunt  Tabitha;  yet  she  is 
the  salt  of  the  earth."  Good 
people  may  be  intensely  uncom- 
fortable neighbors,  and  an  excel- 
lent woman  prove  herself  as  wear- 
ing to  her  family  as  a  mustard 
plaster  next  the  skin,  burning, 
blistering  and  unbearable  even 
by  the  help  of  patience.  There 
are  kind  souls  hi  this  world  who 
defeat  their  own  impulses  by  per- 
forming unselfish  actions  in  a  tact- 
less and  disagreeable  fashion, 
which  cannot  but  provoke  an- 
150 


tagonism;  and  there  are  persons 
admirable  in  their  integrity  and 
their  regard  for  principle,  who, 
nevertheless,  are  instruments  of 
unceasing  discipline  to  their  fami- 
lies. As  a  rule  such  people  are 
calmly  oblivious  to  their  personal 
defects,  and  tranquilly  ready  to 
throw  the  blame  of  whatever 
misery  follows  in  their  wake  on 
the  shoulders  of  others.  They 
are  never  in  the  wrong.  Then* 
ill- temper  is,  in  their  own  eyes, 
righteous  indignation,  and  their 
contrariness,  devotion  to  pro- 
priety; yet  the  sum  of  much 
household  cheerfulness  is  sadly 
lowered  because  of  the  absence 
from  the  home  of  the  element  of 
congeniality,  and  the  necessity 
therein  of  continual  repression, 
151 


self-denial  and  forbearance  on  one 
side. 

I  am  led  to  this  special  line 
of  thought  by  the  dilemma  of 
a  young  couple  who  find  it  their 
duty  to  admit  to  their  new  home 
a  relative  whose  claim  upon  them 
is  two-fold:  she  is  too  feeble  to 
support  herself,  and,  in  a  wide 
circle  of  kindred,  nobody  else  will 
have  her.  The  nephew  who  feels 
called  upon  to  give  her  the  shelter 
of  his  roof  is  quite  aware  that  her 
presence  will  be  a  trial  to  his  wife, 
yet  he  sees  no  other  way  in  the 
matter,  for  Great-Aunt  Nancy 
is  old,  dependent  and  fretful,  and 
she  absolutely  refuses  to  be  sup- 
ported among  strangers. 

The  bride  naturally  regrets  that 
in  her  new  home,  which  she  had 
152 


hoped  to  make  a  bit  of  Eden, 
there  is  to  be  an  inmate  whose 
all-pervading  influence  will  rob 
it  of  much  of  its  charm.  But  she 
is  bravely  making  up  her  mind 
to  the  inevitable.  She  has  set 
aside  a  sunny  chamber  for  the  old 
lady,  and  has  resolved  to  make 
the  best  of  things,  since  Jack  is 
sure  that  there  is  no  other  course 
to  be  taken. 

The  man  of  the  house,  going  to 
business  daily,  escapes  much  of 
the  unpleasant  friction  which  is 
the  accompaniment  of  his  wife's 
life,  when  an  uncongenial  person 
is  with  her  from  dawn  to  bed- 
time. If,  however,  she  sees  the 
thing  clearly,  and  accepts  it  brave- 
ly, half  the  battle  is  won.  A 
nettle  grasped  firmly  in  the  hand 
153 


Ube  3o£ful  xtfc. 


does  not  prick  and  wound  as 
much  as  one  that  is  carelessly 
encountered. 

I  have  little  credence  to  give 
to  the  theory  that  hateful  old 
people  are  the  product  of  un- 
toward circumstances.  Fro  ward- 
ness  of  temper  probably  began 
in  the  days  of  youth,  and  an 
uncurbed  unchecked  selfishness 
years  ago  indulged  and  fostered, 
is  at  the  root  of  the  elderly 
perversity.  One  meets  sweet  old 
people  every  day,  people  who 
have  mellowed  and  ripened  under 
the  storms  of  life,  and  who  have 
gained  beauty  of  soul  and  face 
as  they  have  borne  privation, 
anxiety  and  suffering.  Nothing 
from  without  ever  makes  man 
or  woman  peaceful,  or  the  oppo- 
154 


site.  It  is  the  heart  life  that  tells 
on  the  behavior.  When  a  young 
woman  is  fretful,  unreasonable 
and  capricious,  when  she  sees  only 
her  own  point  of  view,  and  is 
disposed  to  consider  herself  before 
others  in  the  little  as  in  the  large 
occasions  of  home  life,  she  is 
surely  stepping  forward  on  that 
road  which  leads  straight  to  a  med- 
dlesome, interfering  and  dreaded 
old  age. 

When  it  can  be  managed,  young 
people  should  strain  every  nerve 
to  begin  their  united  lives  without 
the  presence  of  any  third  person. 
They  are  far  better  by  themselves, 
especially  in  the  early  years  when 
more  or  less  adjustment  must  be 
taking  place .  To  their  future ,  their 
present  is  ministering,  and  if  no 
155 


one  is  near  to  comment  on  their 
mistakes,  or  to  take  sides  if  they 
happen  to  disagree,  their  chances 
of  harmony  are  increased.  Still 
it  is  now  and  then  a  plain  duty 
to  widen  the  home  and  take  into 
its  sanctuary  another  inmate  who 
may  and  may  not  be  an  addition 
to  the  home's  stock  of  peace. 

A  lady,  who  was  to  her  finger- 
tips a  gentlewoman,  delicate, 
dainty,  and  accustomed  to  a  quiet 
elegance  of  routine  in  her  house- 
keeping, some  time  ago  found  it 
her  clearly  indicated  obligation 
to  admit  beneath  her  roof  a  group 
of  young  people  whose  home  had 
been  swept  away  by  a  flood.  Into 
her  fair  domain  they  trooped  like 
the  vandals  who  invaded  Rome. 
They  were  boisterous  as  a  March 
156 


- 


Incompatibility 

wind,  untrained  in  refinement, 
and  utterly  ungracious  and  un- 
thankful, but  they  had  to  be 
endured  for  a  while.  The  trial 
was  no  slight  one,  though,  as  the 
lady  said,  it  was  not  to  be  men- 
tioned in  the  same  day  with 
incurable  disease,  or  a  fire,  or  a 
death  in  the  family. 

Our  way  of  bearing  such  attacks 
upon  our  equanimity  shows  of 
what  stuff  we  are  made.  It  reveals 
our  philosophy  or  our  lack  of  it; 
yes,  we  may  go  a  step  further  and 
say  that  it  shows  our  Christian 
character,  or  our  imperfect  faith. 
If  it  be  God's  will  that  we  are  to 


dwell  w 
incompatible 
can  give  us 
other  trial. 


those  who  seem  to  us 


with 


God 


grace 


r  peace, 
for  this  as  for  any 


157 


We  may  take  to  our  souls  this 
great  comfort :  that  we  never  have 
to  make  provision  for  the  whole 
journey,  but  merely  for  one  step 
at  a  time.  The  miracle  of  the 
daily  manna  is  ever  repeated  in 
the  commonplace  lives  of  modern 
Christians.  Forecasting  a  weary 
monotonous  stretch  of  the  road, 
we  wonder  how  we  are  ever  to 
accomplish  the  distance  between 
the  milestones.  But  the  Lord  has 
never  bidden  us  to  worry  and 
waste  our  strength  in  this  effort. 
He  has  simply  ordered  us  to  go 
forward,  and  has  said  that  he  will 
give  us  grace  in  time  of  need. 
''If  thy  presence  go  not  with  us, 
carry  us  not  up  hence,"  we  may 
pray,  awaiting  the  answer  that 
will  come  ringing  from  the 
158 


skies:    " Certainly,  I  will  be  with 
thee." 

People  who  are  bad  company 
for  others  are  bad  company  for 
themselves.  Once  in  a  while  is 
it  not  a  good  plan  to  be  very  faith- 
ful in  our  self-examination?  Are 
we  guiltless  in  our  Lord's  sight 
so  far  as  our  intercourse  with 
others  is  concerned?  Are  we 
gentle,  tolerant,  cheerful,  amia- 
ble and  self-controlled?  In  some 
rooms  there  hangs  upon  the  wall 
an  illuminated  card  bearing  this 
legend:  "Christ  is  the  head  of 
this  house;  the  invisible  guest  at 
every  meal;  the  unseen  listener 
to  every  conversation."  We  may 
not  suspend  this  card  from  a  peg 
in  the  chamber  or  the  dining-room, 
but  the  sentiment,  the  thought, 
159 


should  be  ever  with  us.  And  if, 
indeed,  Christ  Jesus  is  with  us, 
and  we  live  as  in  his  immediate 
sight,  we  shall  not  often  be  cross 
with  children,  impatient  with 
young  people,  exacting  with  serv- 
ants, or  unfaithful  in  the  per- 
formance of  our  tasks. 

The  really  brave  soul  does  not 
waste  time  in  thinking  very  much 
about  itself,  and  is  far  from 
wasting  its  strength  in  self-pity 
for  imaginary  wounds  and  bruises. 

In  the  least  lovable  nature  there 
is  something  to  love,  if  it  can 
only  be  found.  Human  beings 
are  very  complex,  and  nobody  is 
repellent  all  through  and  to  all 
advances.  A  little  child  may  find 
the  key  that  unlocks  the  sealed 
tenderness  in  an  aged  heart.  If 
160 


you  can  use  but  the  right  sesame, 
you  may  open  the  most  closely 
barred  door.  A  woman  known 
to  me  was  the  dread  of  three 
generations  for  her  coldness, 
moroseness  and  general  dissatis- 
faction with  her  little  world  and 
with  the  kith  and  kin  whom  she 
affected  to  despise.  But  in  her 
later  life  there  was  thrown  upon 
her  the  care  of  a  helpless  family 
of  motherless  children,  and  she 
amazed  all  who  knew  her  by  fi- 
delity, kindness  and  self-forget- 
fulness  in  the  new  role. 

By  living  as  in  the  presence  of 
Christ  we  shall  gather  strength 
for  any  emergency,  and  be  armed 
against  needless  suffering  and  sor- 
row. Like  Brother  Lawrence, 
that  humble  monk  of  a  by-gone 
161 


Ube  3osf ul  OLffe. 


;*5== 

century,  like  Santa  Teresa,  like 
Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  like  John 
and  Paul,  and  "the  elect  lady," 
and  like  thousands  unnamed  and 
unchronicled  who  have,  through 
faith,  subdued  kingdoms  and 
wrought  righteousness,  let  us  live 
always,  finding  our  Lord  in  every 
hour  and  in  every  action.  For 
nothing  comes  by  chance.  Our 
lives  are  a  plan  of  God.  If  to 
any  of  us  smooth  things  are  not 
appointed,  it  is  because  God  sees 
that  we  need  rough  things.  By 
whatever  wind  God  sends,  the 
Christian's  boat  is  sailing  to  the 
port  of  Peace. 

A  man  that  hath  friends  must 

show  himself  friendly.     In  the  chill 

days  of   March   there   are  blasts 

as  rigorous  as  ever  blew  from  the 

162 


I 


flncompatfbUits. 


frozen  north ;  but  there  are  moods 
of  sunshine  too,  and  sweet  breezes 
that  coax  the  early  flowers  into 
bloom,  and  allure  the  bluebirds 
from  the  thicket,  and  give  the 
land  a  first  pledge  of  a  coming 
April  and  May.  Friendliness  is 
like  the  sunbeam  that  thaws  the 
icicle.  The  most  unsympathetic 
temperament  melts  before  the 
magic  of  persistent  kindness. 

If  any  of  us  is  carrying  the  sort 
of  burden  which  God  has  given  us, 
and  which  is  the  heavier  because 
it  has  to  do  with  the  closeness  of 
earthly  relations  and  the  intima- 
cies of  the  fireside,  let  him  not  try 
to  cast  it  off,  but  rather  remem- 
ber the  injunction,  "Bear  ye  one 
another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfil  the 
law  of  Christ." 

163 


The  great  Duke  of  Marlborough 
had  a  wife  whom  he  adored,  but 
who  was  a  beautiful  termagant. 
He  bore  her  caprices,  her  furies, 
her  frequent  gusts  of  unreason, 
with  a  gentleness  which  was  re- 
markable in  one  who  was  accus- 
tomed to  receive  deference  and  to 
be  obeyed  when  he  commanded. 
One  day,  that  she  might  vex  her 
husband,  the  Duchess  cut  off  her 
beautiful  hair,  which  he  was  ac- 
customed to  caress,  and  left  it 
lying  where  his  eyes  must  fall 
upon  it.  But  her  intention  missed 
its  aim.  To  the  day  of  his  death 
this  man  of  iron  self-control  never 
referred  to  the  incident,  never 
reproached  her,  never  seemed  to 
see  what  she  had  done.  The 
shorn  tresses  grew  to  their  former 
164 


length  without  a  word  from  him. 
But  after  his  death,  among  his 
precious  things  in  a  cabinet  under 
lock  and  key,  those  who  survived 
him  found  the  glory  of  her  hair 
as  he  had  gathered  it  up  and  laid 
it  away.  Incompatibility  of  tem- 
perament had  not  been  enough 
to  make  discord  in  a  union  where 
one  was  invincibly  patient  and 
unconquerably  loving. 

One  generation  passeth  away, 
and  another  generation  cometh. 
Each  respects  the  errors  of  the 
preceding,  and  each  may  derive 
profit  from  the  successes  of  the 
preceding.  In  the  peace  that 
passeth  understanding,  no  matter 
what  the  outside  perturbations, 
we  may  all  be  kept  if  we  but  ask 
for  guidance  and  trust  in  God. 
165 


Hfter  ^ 
flfoueings. 


3^^ 

EASTER  is  the  coronation  of 
the  Christian  year.     As  we 
mount  the  golden  stairway 
of  love  and  faith  which  leads  us  to 
the  contemplation  of  our  Lord's 
resurrection,  we  realize  our  right  to 
be  called  the  children  of  God.    As 
Christ  laid  down  his  life  to  take 
it  again,  so  we,  falling  asleep  in  him, 
shall  awaken  to  newness  of  life. 
To  death  every  believer  may  smile 
a  welcome,  for  death  but  opens 
for  us  the  door  into  the  house  of 
the  Father,  where   is   fulness  of 
167 


Ube 


joy,  and  we  go  no  more  out 
forever. 

I  wonder  whether  we,  as  Chris- 
tians, appreciate  the  comforts 
that  Easter  Day  brings  to  us,  or 
care,  as  we  should,  for  its  promise 
and  its  pledge  of  the  eternity 
which  is  to  be  "  con  jubilant  with 
song."  Surely  in  the  deep  mean- 
ing of  Easter  there  should  be  for 
us  an  abiding  peace.  We  should 
learn  a  nobler  trust.  Our  atti- 
tude toward  the  next  life  should 
be  more  confidant,  less  shrinking, 
more  serene,  and  when  our  loved 
ones  go  we  should  follow  them  with 
some  mingling  of  gladness  in  their 
felicity  to  sweeten  the  loneliness 
of  their  absence. 

One  day  a  woman,  whose  whole 
life  was  a  beatitude,  sat  at  her 
168 


Bfter*i£aster  /Busings. 


• 


desk,  happy  in  her  work,  till  four 
o'clock  on  a  Saturday  afternoon. 
At  the  same  hour  the  next  day 
she  was  not  very  well,  and  that 
night  she  slept  and  drifted  into 
a  state  of  unconsciousness  from 
which  she  did  not  waken  here. 
When  she  awoke  she  was  with 
God.  Her  spirit  had  heard  the 
royal  summons,  "  Daughter,  come 
home,"  and  from  the  earthly 
hearth  she  loved  she  went,  without 
pain,  without  weariness  or  weak- 
ness, straight  to  the  blissful  abode 
above.  There  must  have  been  a 
glad  surprise  for  that  redeemed  one 
when  she  found  herself  in  the 
heavenly  mansions.  People  pray 
to  be  delivered  from  sudden  death, 
as  if  any  experience  could  be  more 
ecstatic  for  the  Christian  than  just 
169 


Ube 


%ffe. 


that  swift  transition  from  one  state 
of  being  to  another.  Nothing  but 
joy  for  one  who  thus  goes  home, 
though  there  must  be  shock  to 
those  who  remain  behind. 

Not  of  death  do  we  think  at 
Easter  so  much  as  of  fulness 
of  life.  All  winter  we  have 
had  bare  branches  and  silent 
woods,  gardens  stripped,  fields 
brown  and  sere.  But  the  time 
of  the  singing  of  birds  has  come. 
The  orchards  are  soon  to  be  gay 
with  blossoms.  Nature,  appar- 
ently languid  and  idle  during  the 
period  of  storm  and  cold,  has 
been  steadily  at  work  in  her 
potential  way  for  months,  and 
soon  the  world  will  be  waving 
and  fragrant  with  summer  again. 
In  the  eagerness  of  healthful  child- 
170 


Bfter*Easter 

hood,  who  does  not  participate 
in  these  happy  hours;  who  is  not 
aware  of  a  thrill  of  rapture  as  he 
listens  to  the  song  of  the  robins, 
or  smells  the  bloom  of  the  lilacs? 
Spring  has  a  charm  to  restore  lost 
childhood  and  make  the  old  young 
once  more.  Every  springtide  wit- 
nesses this  miracle  wrought  anew 
in  you  and  me. 

By  the  door  of  an  old  farm- 
house in  Connecticut  there  grows 
a  white  lilac  bush,  lifting  its 
perfumed  plumes  in  the  spring 
air,  sturdy  and  strong  whatever 
winds  may  blow.  The  people  who 
planted  it  went  to  heaven  many 
a  long  year  ago,  and  the  gray- 
haired  couple  who  occupied  the 
house  when  last  I  saw  it  are  safe 
amid  the  fadeless  gardens  of  Jeru- 
171 


salem  that  is  above.  Strangers 
are  there  now,  and  the  little  flaxen- 
haired  brood  of  an  alien  race  play 
around  the  old  threshold.  But 
the  same  flowers  come  back  year 
by  year,  preaching  the  same  sweet 
sermon  of  the  changeless  faithful- 
ness of  our  God.  When  the  last 
echo  of  the  Easter  music  has 
melted  away  into  space,  when 
the  Easter  garlands  are  withered, 
and  from  the  mount  of  our  Easter 
exaltation  we  descend  to  the  val- 
leys and  the  commonplaces  of  our 
daily  lives,  let  this  be  our  cease- 
less joy:  that  God  is  everwith  us. 
Always  the  same  gospel !  He  who, 
year  in  and  year  out,  sends  the 
shower  and  the  sunbeam,  dresses 
highway  and  byway  with  beauty, 
from  the  dogwood  to  the  golden- 
172 


rod,  from  the  green  leaf  to  the 
brown,  will  not  forget  the  least 
of  us.  His  goodness  is  ever  new; 
his  kindness  always  outpoured, 
his  tenderness  greater  than  our 
uttermost  demand,  and  the  same 
spring  time  over  and  over  is  sent 
by  the  same  dear  Lord  and  Father. 
In  the  old  days  of  the  Bible 
there  were  those  who  dwelt  with 
Jehovah  as  we  seldom  do  in  our 
hurrying  modern  life.  Abraham 
was  "the  friend  of  God,"  and 
Enoch  habitually  "walked  with 
God,"  and  we  too,  in  our  railway 
trains  and  at  our  work,  may  have 
glimpses  of  the  unseen,  may  walk 
with  God,  if  we  seek  him  amid  the 
details  of  our  avocation  and  take 
time  to  look  upward.  What  a 
different  world  this  might  be  for 
173 


some  of  us  if  we  were  ever  alert 
to  hear  the  voice  of  God;  if  amid 
the  perturbations  and  disturbances 
of  our  days  we  walked  in  such 
sympathy  with  him  that  our  souls 
would  be  tranquil,  whatever  came 
to  us. 

"  Calm  me,  my  God,  and  keep  me  calm, 
Soft  resting  on  thy  breast," 

should  be  the  prayer  of  every  one 
who  walks  with  God. 

All  sorts  of  human  experiences 
militate  in  our  time  with  the  con- 
templative spirit  which  dwells 
apart  and  muses  of  heavenly 
things.  Many  a  Christian  has  a 
hard  time  to  get  along  because 
of  limited  means.  Children  to 
be  fed,  clothed,  and  educated; 
fuel  to  buy,  rent  to  pay,  some- 
thing to  be  provided  for  the 
174 


Htter*J6aster 

future;  it  takes  the  whole  of  the 
man's  time  and  strength,  or  the 
woman's  faith  and  hope  to  carry 
the  burdens  of  responsibility  and 
ordinary  work.  If  religion  is  good 
for  anything,  it  is  good  for  sus- 
taining the  heavy-laden.  Not  on 
Sundays  only,  with  their  blessed 
intervals  of  peace,  but  on  every 
week  day  the  thought  of  God 
should  bring  a  breath  of  balm,  the 
presence  of  Christ  should  make 
of  the  plainest  loaf  and  the  scan- 
tiest cup  a  feast.  Surely  it  is  not 
only  of  the  Sabbath  that  looking 
back  we  may  say,  "He  brought 
me  into  his  banqueting-house  and 
his  banner  over  me  was  love." 

Among  the  after-Easter  sugges- 
tions which  we   cannot  forego  is 
one  that  has  to  do  with  the  mourn- 
175 


ing  of  Christians.  When  from  a 
household  devoted  to  this  world 
and  its  pleasures  and  ambitions 
one  member  goes,  there  may  well 
be  gloom  that  is  unrelieved,  for 
where  is  there  room  for  hope  of 
reunion?  But  if  the  child,  the 
husband,  the  loved  one,  is  taken 
to  Christ,  the  Christian  has  the 
sure  expectation  that  in  a  little 
while  there  will  be  a  blithe  meet- 
ing to  compensate  for  the  sad 
parting.  Not  perhaps  for  a  longer 
time  than  often  intervenes  in  this 
world,  are  we  divided  from  those 
who  pass  onward,  since  we  never 
know  how  soon  the  summons  home 
may  come  for  us.  That  other  life 
that  seems  so  distant,  may  be 
near,  and  always 

It's  coming,  coming  nearer, 
That  lovely  land  unseen, 
176 


It's  shores  are  growing  clearer, 
Though  mists  lie  dark  between. 

Habitually  to  think  on  heaven 
as  the  land  of  the  living,  and  of 
our  dead  as  occupied  there  in 
loving  service,  should  help  us 
to  bear  our  present  bereavements 
with  cheerfulness  that  conquers 
grief  and  makes  resignation  dig- 
nified and  tranquil. 

Lent,  formerly  observed  only 
by  certain  sects  in  the  church,  is 
gradually  so  winning  the  hearts 
of  Christians  of  every  name,  that 
many  quietly  keep  it  as  a  period 
when  they  may  draw  nearer  to 
their  Master  than  in  the  ordinary 
activities  of  time.  A  season  of 
retirement  now  and  then  is  worth 
while  for  any  one's  seeking  who 
wishes  to  grow  in  grace.  The 
177 


forty-days'  fast,  though  only  par- 
tial as  regards  self-denial  in  food 
and  drink,  may  be  profitably  kept 
by  abstaining  from  some  of  the 
ordinary  social  diversions,  and  by 
giving  larger  time  than  usual  to 
prayer  and  scripture  reading. 
Would  we  know  the  mind  of  God, 
let  us  search  the  Scriptures  which 
are  able  to  make  us  wise  unto 
salvation. 

"My  friend/'  said  a  good  woman 
meeting  another  on  the  street, 
"I  want  you  to  have  a  richer 
benediction  from  above  than  you 
ever  have  had."  The  salutation 
was  uncommon.  The  one  who 
gave  it  had  been  herself  uplifted 
by  a  season  of  communion  with  the 
Most  High,  it  being  her  custom 
now  and  then  to  spend  a  day  in 
178 


her   closet,   giving   the   hours 
prayer  from  morn  till  eve. 

One  day  or  forty  days,  let  us 
who  have  shared  the  Easter 
gladness  give  from  tune  to  tune 
a  special  interval  which  shall  be 
consecrated  to  special  thought, 
prayer  and  study. 

Every  Christian  Sabbath  is  a 
commemoration  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. Every  time  the  bells  call 
us  to  church  they  call  us  to  wor- 
ship the  living  Christ,  the  Lord  who 
was  not  chained  of  death  but  in 
triumph  broke  its  bonds.  Enter- 
ing the  sanctuary  we  show  that 
we  are  followers  of  the  risen  one. 

The  apostles  so  near  the  tune 
when  the  Lord  was  crucified,  and 
so  happy  hi  their  personal  knowl- 
edge of  him  before  he  ascended 
179 


into  heaven,  continually  preached 
the  resurrection.  The  New  Tes- 
tament is  full  of  the  melody 
of  their  triumphant  faith.  We, 
nearer  to  the  day  of  his  ultimate 
triumph  over  men  than  they, 
should  have  an  equally  regnant 
faith.  Our  daily  life  and  con- 
versation should  be  set  to  the  lofty 
chorals  of  victory,  and  every  Sab- 
bath should  bring  to  us  an  added 
sense  of  joy,  a  farther-reaching 
glimpse  into  the  unseen. 

How  white  are  the  flowers  of 
Easter,  lily,  azalea,  heather,  rose; 
how  stainless  are  the  blossoms, 
we  choose  for  our  churches,  our 
homes,  and  our  festivals  at  this 
flood-tide  of  the  spring.  I  re- 
member an  after-Easter  wedding 
in  a  stately  church ;  the  flowers,  the 
180 


Bfter^JEastcr  /Busings. 


; 


bride's  dress,  the  white  ribbons, 
all  typical  of  spotless  purity.  We 
have  such  associations,  all  of  us, 
and  though  we  admit  gorgeousness 
of  color,  yet  the  white  tone  pre- 
dominates in  our  Easter  adornings. 
The  suggestion  is  of  robes  washed 
white,  of  sins  removed  and  blotted 
out,  of  the  garments  the  redeemed 
shall  wear  in  Paradise. 

When  the  Easter  chorals  cease, 

When  the  Easter  flowers  fade; 
Keep  us  still  in  perfect  peace 

In  the  sunbeam,  in  the  shade: 
Grant  us,  Lord,  the  Easter  love, 

Give  us,  Lord,  the  Easter  hope, 
Till  we  reach  the  realm  above, 

And  the  crystal  portals  ope. 

Not  more  knowledge,  but  more 
love,  more  child-like  simplicity, 
more  spontaneity  in  our  service, 
are  the  great  necessities  of  the 
181 


' 


"SSfi 


ttbe  -Joyful  Xffe. 


Christian  life  to-day.  Is 
real  to  you,  dear  friend? 
you  feel  that  you  love  him  so  that 
life  lacking  him  would  be  strangely 
shorn  of  the  beauty,  of  interest, 
and  of  enthusiasm?  Do  you  say 
in  the  hush  of  the  twilight,  in  the 
heat  of  the  noon,  when  the  great 
moon  hangs  golden  on  the  horizon, 
or  the  morning  tints  the  east, 
"My  beloved  is  mine,  and  I  am 
his,"  "I  am  my  beloved's,  and  my 
beloved  is  mine."  If  so,  you 
may  carry  with  you  everywhere 
and  always  a  continual  Easter 
in  your  heart  and  life. 


182 


When  flfeotber  is 
Blue. 


WHEN  mother  is  blue,  I 
just    put    on    my  hat 
and    run     away.       It 
takes  all  the  sunshine  out  of  the 
house,  and  I  can't  stand  it." 

The  speaker  was  a  girl  of  twenty, 
with  an  apple-blossom  face  and 
merry  eyes.  One  saw  at  a  glance 
that  her  life  had  been  free  from 
the  pressure  of  much  care,  just  as 
one  read  between  the  lines,  in 
looking  at  her  mother's  calm  coun- 
tenance, that  the  elder  woman 
had  fought  a  long  battle  with  ad- 
183 


versities  of  various  kinds.  In  that 
faded  face  the  eyes  may  once  have 
been  merry,  but  they  had  grown 
thoughtful,  and  it  was  hard  to 
believe  that  the  matron  had  ever 
been  reproved  in  her  youth  for 
indiscreet  and  immoderate  hilar- 
ity. Yet,  as  she  smiled  at  her 
daughter's  impulsive  speech,  she 
said, 

"I  was  once  as  gay  as  Gertrude 
ever  is.  In  fact,  I  was  noted  for 
my  irrepressible  spirits.  The  dis- 
cipline of  experience  has  toned 
me  down,  but  I  am  almost  always 
cheerful." 

"Yes,  indeed,"  said  the  daugh- 
ter, patting  her  mother's  cheek, 
"  and  that  is  why  I  am  so  disturbed 
when  she  is  out  of  sorts,  the  dear 
brave  lady.  I  feel  as  if  the  bottom 
184 


TKHben  flDotber  is  Blue, 

has  dropped  out  of  our  scheme  of 
living  when  mother  gives  up  and 
folds  her  hands  in  melancholy." 
I  went  on  my  way  with  a  new 
appreciation  of  the  mother's  value 
to  a  home.  Motherhood  implies 
so  much,  must  mean  so  much  in 
every  environment,  and  in  our 
households  what  do  we  not  expect 
from  her  who  is  at  the  helm?  She 
manages  the  domestic  economy, 
often  doing  most  if  not  all  of  the 
work  with  her  own  hands.  She 
buys  the  material  for  the  chil- 
dren's clothing,  cuts  it  out  and 
makes  it.  The  weekly  mending 
and  darning  for  an  ordinary  fam- 
ily is  a  large  and  onerous  task, 
and  in  a  majority  of  instances 
the  mother  undertakes  and  carries 
it  on  without  assistance.  When 
185 


Vbe  Jopful  *tte. 


ffl 


a  maid  is  kept,  or  where  there 
are  several  servants,  the  routine 
still  demands  the  continual  super- 
vision of  the  lady  of  the  house, 
an  old-fashioned  term  which  I 
like  for  its  suggestiveness  and  de- 
scriptive character.  It  is  she  who 
plans  and  projects,  who  caters  and 
provides  against  usual  or  unusual 
needs,  who  frequently  makes  the 
finer  desserts,  and  on  whom  the 
comfort  of  her  circle  depends. 

Mother  is  the  confidante  of  the 
children,  who  bring  to  her  their 
little  daily  troubles  and  trials, 
tell  her  of  their  school  difficulties 
and  ask  her  help  at  evening  when 
they  study  the  lessons  for  the 
As  her  sons ; 


day. 


daugh- 


ters grow  up,  they  more  than  ever 

need    her    counsel    and    support; 

186 


Wben  flDotber  IB  SBlue. 


more  than  ever  lay  their  burdens 
at  her  feet,  and  receive  from  her 
wise  and  tender  hands  maxims 
and  bits  of  advice  as  indispensable 
as  daily  bread. 

A  father  may  throughout  the 
years  of  their  opening  lives  show 
indifference,  aversion  or  positive 
hostility  to  religion,  yet  if  his 
children  have  a  pious  and  praying 
mother,  she  may  draw  them  one 
by  one  into  the  kingdom.  A 
Christian  mother,  one  who  lives 
close  to  God,  is  almost  invincible 
against  the  darts  of  Satan,  and 
opposes  an  armor  of  proof  that 
throws  off  his  poisoned  arrows 
and  acts  as  a  shield  for  her  loved 
ones.  God  has  ordained  that 
mothers  shall  be  influential  be- 
yond others.  They  have  the  first 
187 


I 


Ube  3osf ul  OLffe. 


chance.  The  impressions  they 
make  are  the  most  enduring.  I 
would  not  underrate  nor  diminish 
the  potency  of  Christian  father- 
hood ;  but  men  are  less  with  their 
families  in  the  home,  and  less 
able  to  lay  line  upon  line  and 
precept  upon  precept  in  their 
children's  training,  than  are 
women.  No  Christian  mother 
should  ever  despair  of  the  ultimate 
safety,  the  conversion,  and  the 
sanctification  of  those  whom  as 
little  ones  she  brought  to  the 
Lord  in  continual,  reverent  and 
humble  faith. 

But,  with  everything  they  have 
to  do,  mothers  sometimes  grow 
weary.  Health  fails,  trials  thick- 
en, anxieties  crush.  The  most 
elastic  nature  is  not  strong 
188 


Wben  flDotber  is  Blue. 


enough  to  cope  with  never-ceasing 
financial  stress.  Just  a  little  more 
money  in  many  an  instance  would 
so  ease  the  machinery  of  the  home, 
so  lessen  the  load,  so  brighten 
the  life,  that  the  mother  would 
live  longer,  be  less  irritable,  be 
freed  from  nervousness,  and  do 
her  best  as  she  is  never  able  to  do, 
handicapped  by  limited  means. 
Mother  is  "blue,"  because  mother 
is  worn  out.  Mother  is  "blue" 
because  the  rose-light  of  hope 
has  turned  to  dull  gray  ash  and 
withered  brown  in  her  pathway. 
The  happy  young  things  about 
her,  effervescing  with  vivacity, 
overflowing  with  energy,  do  not 
comprehend  mother's  despondency 
for  two  reasons:  one  is  that  they 
are  so  well  and  so  strong  that 
189 


they  have  not  yet  learned  sym- 
pathy with  ill  health  and  feeble- 
ness, and  the  other  that  they  are 
often  in.  the  dark  as  to  the  causes 
of  maternal  solicitude.  With  a 
mistaken  kindness  parents  often 
keep  their  trials  to  themselves 
and  refuse  to  let  young  people 
share  them.  The  life  of  the  home 
goes  on  with  "a  flowing  sail/' 
nobody  is  warned  of  reefs  and 
shoals,  and  not  until  a  crash 
comes  are  any  of  the  family  except 
the  overwrought  parents  aware 
that  there  were  danger  signals 
which  ought  to  have  been  heeded. 
"I  don't  want  to  spoil  young 
lives,"  says  the  mother. 

In  family  life  reciprocity  should 
rule.     With  a  weakness  that  has 
its  root  in  purity  and  unselfishness 
190 


IKIlben  flDotber  fs  JSlue. 


parents  overbrood  their  children 
long  after  the  latter  have  out- 
grown the  necessity.  For  ex- 
ample, a  man  was  struggling  in 
deep  waters  in  a  period  of  life 
when  his  first  strength  was  spent, 
middle  age  with  its  encroach- 
ments had  arrived,  and  pecuni- 
arily he  had  all  to  do  that  he 
could  possibly  attempt,  in  order 
to  save  his  credit  and  keep  himself 
from  bankruptcy.  His  situation 
was  known  to  a  friend,  who  met 
him  one  day  accompanied  by  a 
young  and  very  beautiful  girl,  his 
eldest  daughter.  She  was  ur- 
gently pleading  for  the  money 
to  buy  an  expensive  outfit  for  a 
summer  jaunt,  and  she  continued 
her  petitions,  half  in  banter,  made 
as  a  cover  for  a  very  evident 
191 


sober  seriousness  of  intention 
and  desire.  The  father's  predica- 
ment was  that  of  an  indulgent 
man  who  had  never  denied  his 
child  a  request  that  it  was  in  his 
power  to  grant.  He  tried  to  say 
No,  but  yielded  in  the  end,  gave 
the  daughter  her  way,  and  plunged 
himself  into  more  tangled  difficul- 
ties. "I  never  saw  anything  so 
cruel  as  that  young  girl's  beha- 
vior," was  the  friend's  comment; 
"nor  so  inane  as  that  of  her 
father.  He  seemed  to  me  pitiably 
weak  and  foolish." 

In  such  a  situation,  complete 
confidence  would  do  much  to 
render  impossible  so  unhappy  an 
incident.  Parents  ought  to  let 
sons  and  daughters  know  the 
family  resources,  and  to  some 
192 


TPQlben  flBotber  te  JSlue. 


extent,  at  least  by  self-denial, 
allow  them  to  share  the  family 
burdens.  Mother  would  seldom 
be  "blue"  if  she  were  not  unduly 
weighted  with  the  heft  of  loads 
too  great  for  her  to  bear. 

But  when  she  is  depressed,  is 
it  quite  fair  to  run  away  and 
leave  her  to  "dree  her  weird 
alone"?  Sometimes  this  is  what 
she  needs,  quiet,  seclusion,  no 
one,  above  all,  to  jar  on  her  mood 
by  untimely  cheer,  no  one  to 
antagonize  her  by  reproaches. 
Often  she  does  want  and  would 
respond  to  tenderness,  to  gentle- 
ness and  loving  caresses  and 
speech.  If  she  can  be  persuaded 
to  get  out  of  herself  by  any  tact- 
ful ministries,  her  fit  of  the  blues 
will  soon  pass  away. 
193 


Mothers  are  very  apt  to  lack 
variety  in  their  lives.  The 
younger  people  have  the  vacations, 
mothers  stay  at  home  and  cook 
and  sew.  There  is  a  limit  to 
woman's  power  of  endurance. 
Over  many  a  lowly  mound,  be- 
dewed by  sorrowful  mourners  with 
honest  tears,  might  be  written, 
"Died  of  monotony."  Change  of 
scene  is  better  than  medicine  for 
many  a  malady  of  body  and  mind. 
Once  in  a  while  a  surprise  might 
be  carried  out  by  which  the  youth 
of  a  tired  woman  should  be  re- 
newed. 

I  recall  a  wedding  I  once  at- 
tended, where  the  bride  went  from 
her  father's  house  a  slender  lily- 
white  girl,  who  had  been  brought 
up  most  delicately  in  an  atmos- 
194 


TlClben  flDotber  is  Blue. 


phere  of  ease  and  luxury.  She 
accompanied  the  husband  of  her 
choice  into  a  rough,  hard  pioneer 
life  in  a  new  State,  and  there,  far 
from  neighbors,  from  church  privi- 
leges, or  any  social  advantages, 
she  spent  many  years.  Children 
came  rapidly.  Her  cares  were 
numerous.  She  grew  old  and 
hard-handed  and  prematurely 
bent.  At  last  there  was  received 
a  pressing  invitation  from  her 
girlhood's  home  for  her  return 
there,  to  make  a  long  and  restful 
visit.  True  to  her  habit  of  self- 
abnegation,  she  was  reluctant  to 
consent,  and  desired  to  send  a 
representative  in  her  graceful 
Maud,  the  image  of  herself  at 
seventeen,  or  her  dimpled  Agnes, 
a  lovely  child  of  fourteen.  But 
195 


the  children  were  firm.  Mother 
must  go,  they  said,  and  go  she  did. 
A  new  black  silk  gown  for  occa- 
sions was  an  unheard  of  extrava- 
gance, but  it  was  procured;  her 
wardrobe,  though  very  simple, 
was  augmented  until  she  felt  that 
it  was  presentable,  and  a  shy, 
reserved,  timid  stranger,  the 
woman  who  had  forgotten  the 
lightsomeness  of  her  youth,  ap- 
peared again  in  her  olden  place. 
At  first  she  described  her  sen- 
sations by  the  homely  comparison 
of  a  cat  in  a  strange  garret;  but 
the  unfamiliarity  wore  off,  the 
rough  hands  smoothed,  and  she 
found  that  leisure  had  attractions 
of  its  own.  People  did  not  know 
her  when  she  emerged  from  the 
enfolding  solitude  of  her  far  off 
196 


TKttben  jflDotber  is  3Blue. 


home,  but  bit  by  bit  they  dis- 
covered her  to  be  the  same  that 
she  used  to  be,  and  when,  after 
three  swift  months  had  gone, 
she  said  that  she  must  turn  her 
face  again  to  husband  and  chil- 
dren, it  was  predicted  that  they 
would  hardly  know  her  there. 
Nor  was  it  quite  the  same  mother 
who  went  home;  it  was  a  mother 
rested,  refreshed,  and  wonder- 
fully rejuvenated;  freed  from  the 
fettering  grooves,  and  with  new 
strength,  new  interest,  and  new 
delight  in  living.  Such  a  new 
lease  might  be  given  to  many  a 
tired  out  mother. 

In  every  age,  in  every  clime, 
the  tendrils  of  the  heart  cling 
to  the  mother.  Alike  in  the  far 
East  as  in  the  newer  West,  she 
197 


takes  precedence  of  others,  with 
a  singular  and  compelling  charm 
that  has  its  origin  in  human  nature. 
The  one  who  nursed  us  in  infancy 
must  be  dearest  and  nearest  in 
one  exquisite  and  intimate  rela- 
tion until  the  end  of  her  life. 
Mother  love  is  sacred,  is  unexact- 
ing,  is  glorious.  Though  poets 
and  painters  prefer  to  dwell  on 
the  love  of  the  young  mother, 
holding  in  her  arms  the  little 
child,  in  real  life  the  mother  grown 
old  is  just  as  beautiful  and  as 
fondly  cherished  as  her  youthful 
sister.  King  Solomon  rose  and 
seated  his  aged  mother  beside 
him  on  the  throne  when  she 
entered  his  royal  presence,  type 
in  this  of  every  loyal  son  who  does 
honor  to  a  venerable  mother. 
198 


flDotber  is  Blue, 


The  mother  to  whom  we  pay 
no  homage  is  the  one,  rarely  seen, 
whom  Dickens  drew  under  the 
name  of  Mrs.  Skewton.  Artificial, 
aping  juvenility,  heartless,  fasten- 
ing her  poor  old  hands  in  a  frantic 
clutch  on  the  fringes  of  fashion, 
her  very  existence  a  thing  of 
shreds  and  patches,  one  can 
scarcely  tolerate  such  a  travesty 
of  motherhood.  One  hopes  it  is 
a  caricature;  and  yet  to  this 
degradation  a  woman  may  come 
in  old  age,  if  she  live  for  this  world 
only. 

"  She  has  chosen  the  world  and  its 

Misnamed  pleasure, 
She  has  chosen  the  world  before 
Heaven's  own  treasure." 

When  mother  is  blue,  or  a  little 
difficult,  or  set  too  much  in  her 
199 


.- 


i 


own  way  quite  to  suit  the  head- 
strong wilfulness  of  the  juniors, 
bear  with  her  and  set  about  bring- 
ing back  her  sunshine.  Half  the 
every-day  sorrow  of  this  earth 
would  melt  into  thin  air  if  we 
were  all  more  anxious  to  give  joy 
than  to  get  it,  to  be  rather  love- 
worthy than  grasping,  and  to 
make  others  happy  whether  or 
not  we  were  happy  ourselves. 


200 


WRITING  from  his  country 
home  to  a  friend  in 
town,  Dr.  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes,  then  past  his  three 
score  years  and  ten,  said  that  on 
the  preceding  Sabbath  he  had  at- 
tended the  Baptist  church  in  the 
village,  adding,  "  There  is  a  little 
plant  called  Reverence,  in  a  corner 
of 'my  soul's  garden,  which  I  like 
to  have  watered  about  once  a 
week." 

The     old-fashioned    virtue    of 


daily  life,  is  rather  deprecated 
in  our  modern  society.  Shake- 
speare says,  "Yet  Reverence,  that 
angel  of  the  world,  doth  make 
distinction  of  place  'twixt  high 
and  low."  It  is  our  boast  now, 
however  our  observation  chal- 
lenges its  truth,  that  we  have  no 
distinctions  of  rank  and  class  in 
America;  that  all  men  are  born 
free  and  equal,  and  that  they  so 
remain.  Certainly  a  vast  change 
has  come  to  pass  since  the  New 
England  parson,  stately  in  his 
ruffled  shirt  and  gold-headed  cane, 
walked  the  streets  of  the  seques- 
tered hamlet  or  the  growing  city, 
regarded,  for  the  sake  of  his  office 
and  his  personality,  with  veneration 
by  young  and  old .  In  Hawthorne 's 
picturesque  delineations  of  Puritan 
202 


life  we  find  gentlewomen  sump- 
tuously arrayed  in  velvet  and 
lace,  while  matrons  of  lesser  sta- 
tion were  limited  to  stuff  of  in- 
ferior value  and  smaller  cost. 
Apparently  there  were  no  heart- 
burnings over  accepted  facts  of 
this  land;  the  cottage  maiden 
and  her  good  mother  did  not  envy 
the  splendors  of  the  Squire's  lady 
and  the  Judge's  daughter.  As  a 
wave  of  revolt  against  class  des- 
potism swept  over  France,  and 
then  a  tempest  of  revolution  set 
our  colonies  on  the  safe  shore  of 
national  independence,  many  fine, 
sincere  and  noble  things  came 
in,  but  one  brave,  exquisite  and 
lovely  thing  went  out.  Rever- 
ence, deference,  recognition  of  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  courtesy 
203 


M 


Ube  Sopful  %ffe, 

^S%gj? 

have  been  suffered  to  become 
almost  obsolete  in  many  quarters. 
It  behooves  us  in  these  days  to  ask 
why,  and  once  more  to  plant  in 
our  municipalities  and  our  rural 
demesnes  the  blooming  herb  of 
reverence. 

We  may  begin  by  teaching  the 
children  to  behave  with  politeness 
to  their  elders.  I  have  heard 
my  kinswomen  of  a  former  gener- 
ation tell  how  they  stood  in  the 
presence  of  their  fathers  and 
mothers,  unless  they  were  re- 
quested to  sit.  Mrs.  Sherwood 
and  Frederika  Bremer  describe 
in  their  autobiographies  a  similar 
custom  in  their  childish  days. 
With  the  swing  of  the  pendulum 
which  has  reversed  so  much  of 
the  old  order,  has,  unfortunately, 
204 


j^S, 


"Reverence. 


resulted  a  state  of  affairs  in  which, 
so  to  speak,  parents  stand  and 
children  sit.  In  far  too  many 
households,  not  in  the  least  for 
their  own  happiness  and  well 
being,  children  are  autocrats  and 
arbiters,  and  do  as  they  please 
in  most  of  their  relations  to  home 
and  social  life.  Barbara  and 
Timothy  attend  a  Sabbath-school 
which  does  not  belong  to  the 
parental  church,  and  they  go  to 
church  or  stay  away  as  they 
choose.  Miriam  calmly  swings 
her  little  feet  from  the  most 
luxurious  chair  in  the  room,  while 
grandpapa  contents  himself  with 
anything  he  can  find.  Jacky 
plays  soldier  in  the  halls  and  tears 
madly  up  and  down  stairs,  whoop- 
ing like  an  Indian  brave,  while 
205 


his  mother  struggles  heroically 
with  a  nervous  headache,  but 
does  not  interfere  with  the  boy, 
lest  he  shall  not  be  happy  in  his 
home.  The  juvenile  contingent 
owns  the  place,  and,  by  a  method 
of  natural  induction,  learns  that 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  show  much 
attention  to  any  one  not  of  its 
especial  world. 

Yet,  whoever  so  trams  or  so 
mistrains  a  child  that  he  or  she 
reaches  maturity  without  the 
spirit  and  the  practice  of  deference 
to  authority  and  consideration 
to  others,  does  that  child  a  most 
grievous  wrong.  No  other  charm 
of  girlhood  is  so  winsome,  no 
attraction  of  youthful  manhood 
so  potential  as  that  habit  of 
courtesy  which  has  its  root  in  an 
206 


•Reverence, 

S^jgjg^gg 

acknowledgment  of  the  claims 
of  infirmity,  of  weakness,  of  su- 
perior age  and  of  honorable  sta- 
tion. The  truly  well-bred  person 
does  not  appear  crude  and  ill- 
mannered,  or  arrogant  and  self- 
assertive  in  the  presence  of  those 
whom  he  has  the  grace  to  treat 
with  respect. 

The  quaint,  sweet  word  decorum 
is  not  lacking  in  fragrance;  it 
perfumes,  as  with  lavender  from 
an  old-time  garden,  the  inter- 
course of  society  where  reverence 
is  still  known  and  practised. 

A  deep  courtesy  and  a  profound 
bow  are,  each  in  its  place,  more 
elegant  than  the  curt  nod  which 
is  far  too  common.  The  hat  taken 

touched 


off  the 


jrely 


or  lifted,  is  a  sign  of  fine  breeding, 


207 


more  common  among  gentlemen 
of  the  courtly  old  school  than 
among  hurried  men  of  the  new. 
Even  the  disuse  of  the  beautiful 
term  "lady,"  and  the  substitution 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  of 
the  word  "woman,"  are  significant 
of  an  epoch  when  manners  are 
degenerate,  and  brusqueness  is 
exalted  above  the  sweet  refine- 
ments of  delicate  ceremony. 

Every  boy  in  the  land  should 
be  drilled  scrupulously  by  his 
mother  in  the  accomplishment  of 
lifting  his  hat  or  pulling  off  his 
cap  when  he  says  "good  morn- 
ing "  or  "good  evening"  to  people 
whom  he  meets.  The  lad  should 
learn  to  stand  bareheaded  when 
talking  to  an  older  friend,  certainly 
to  a  woman  on  the  street,  unless 
208 


•Reverence. 


the  inclemency  of  the  weather 
affords  him  an  excuse  for  covering 
in  her  presence.  Children  on 
their  way  to  school  along  country 
roads  should  be  taught  to  acknowl- 
edge, with  a  pleasant  bow,  the 
presence  of  the  people  whom  they 
pass.  But  these  are  merely  ex- 
ternals of  ordinary  politeness 
which  should  never  have  been 
allowed  to  drop  into  desuetude. 
The  true  spirit  of  reverence  ought 
to  go  deeper.  Witness  how  often 
and  how  rudely  children  and  young 
people  interrupt  their  elders,  how 
their  concerns  take  precedence  of 
every  other  interest,  how  they 
clamor  for  their  way,  and  how 
easily  they  get  it.  I  have  seen 


a 


young 
graduate 


and 
of 


a 


beautiful  girl,  the 
famous  college,  lead 
209 


Xife. 


the  conversation  in  a  drawing- 
room  where  were  seated  a  group 
of  people,  several  of  whom  were 
entitled  to  be  called  personages. 
That  one  had  gained  honors  in  the 
Civil  War,  that  another  was  an 
eminent  professional  man,  that 
two  or  three  ladies  were  leaders  in 
the  benevolences  of  the  city  and 
State  made  no  impression  what- 
ever on  the  young  woman,  who 
simply  chattered  away,  monopo- 
lizing the  floor,  herself  her  heroine. 
I  know  a  girl  who  is  plain  as  to 
feature  and  awkward  as  to  form, 
whose  opportunities  have  been 
few,  and  whose  culture  is  narrow, 
yet  she  never  goes  anywhere  or 
stays  under  any  roof  that  her 
influence  is  not  felt,  as  gentle  as 
the  south  wind,  as  perfumed  as 

210 


the  violets  breath.  Her  secret  is 
simplicity  and  deference.  She 
forgets  herself.  She  puts  others 
first.  The  elderly  lady,  the  old 
gentleman,  hi  her  code  are  en- 
titled to  deference  when  they 
speak,  and  to  the  best  seats  by 
the  hearth  and  at  the  board.  She 
is  beloved,  because  she  gives  much 
and  requests  little. 

I  wish  we  might  all  pay  more 
attention  to  our  manners.  Man- 
ner is  the  concrete  expression  of 
one's  nature  and  character;  it  is 
partly  inherited;  it  is  developed 
from  within  rather  than  acquired 
from  without;  but  manners  are 
the  product  of  habits.  They  may 
be  taught,  they  may  be  learned, 
they  are  somewhat  affected  by 
association,  and  they  derive  a 

211 


great  deal  from  imitation.  No 
child  should  sit  still  when  a  lady, 
his  mother  or  his  aunt,  or  a  friend 
of  the  family,  enters  the  room. 
The  child  should  rise  and  remain 
standing  till  the  lady  is  seated. 
The  same  courtesy  should  be 
shown  a  gentleman  with  the  dig- 
nity of  years  upon  his  head.  No 
young  man  or  woman  should 
monopolize  conversation  or  rudely 
contradict  the  expressions  of  an 
older  person.  Indeed  rudeness  is 
a  quality  to  be  ruled  out  of  human 
intercourse  as  soon  as  possible. 
But  we  may  rise  to  a  higher 
plane.  Dr.  Holmes  habitually 
went  to  church  that  he  might 
cultivate  the  plant  of  reverence 
in  his  soul.  How  is  it  with  men, 
old,  young  and  of  middle  age,  who 
212 


•Reverence. 


by  scores  and  hundreds  are  absent 
from  their  pews  every  Sabbath, 
excusing  themselves  on  this  and 
the  other  plea  of  weariness  or 
indifference,  and  letting  wives  and 
daughters  and  sisters  worship 
alone?  They  lounge  at  home, 
reading  secular  books  and  news- 
papers, treating  the  house  of  God 
as  though  it  were  a  useless  inter- 
ruption of  a  man's  routine,  and 
flinging  defiance  in  the  face  of  the 
Almighty,  who  has  said,  "Ye 
shall  keep  my  Sabbaths  and  rev- 
erence my  sanctuaries."  What 
reverence  for  God's  word  is  incul- 
cated in  homes  where  there  is  no 
family  prayer,  or  for  God's  provi- 
dential oversight  at  tables  where 
no  blessing  is  asked  or  thanks 
rendered?  How  shall  a  house- 
213 


xfte. 


hold  learn  to  revere  the  Lord, 
when  evidently  money  and  fashion 
and  ambition  and  display  and 
pleasure  are  objects  of  worship 
rather  than  the  Heavenly  Father? 

All  foolish  jesting  which  makes 
light  of  religion,  all  sneering  at 
piety,  all  taking  of  God's  name 
and  attributes  in  vain,  militate 
against  reverence  in  character.  I 
cannot  protest  too  strongly  against 
any  use  of  the  Bible  which  is  not 
thoughtful  and  devotional.  To 
take  the  words  of  scripture  to  cap 
a  pun  or  solve  a  conundrum 
seems  to  me  blasphemous. 

Another  point  on  which  we 
may  profitably  dwell  is  demeanor 
in  God's  house.  When  the  church 
is  made  a  place  where  friends 
whisper  and  talk  before  service, 
214 


m 


•Reverence. 


where  they  carry  on  bits  of  chat 
at  intervals  during  its  progress, 
where  they  look  over  hymn-books 
or  the  church  programs  during 
a  sermon  that  tires  them,  or  stare 
about  during  a  prayer,  good  man- 
ners are  violated,  and  reverence 
is  hopelessly  at  fault.  Persons 
who  assume  their  outdoor  wraps 
during  doxology  or  benediction 
are  anything  but  reverential; 
those  who  shut  their  psalters  and 
hymn-books  with  emphasis  and 
dash  them  back  into  the  rack  with 
the  rattle  of  musketry,  manifest 
ignorance  of  propriety,  and  those 
who  rush  from  a  church  the  in- 
stant of  dismissal,  as  if  fleeing 
from  a  pestilence,  are  equally 
wanting  in  the  elements  of  good 
behavior.  Reverence  for  God's 
215 


house  is  as  essential  a  matter  of 
right  Christian  conduct  as  rever- 
ence for  God's  word.  Let  none 
lay  a  profane  finger  on  the  ark 
of  the  Lord. 

In  our  closets,  too,  we  may  cul- 
tivate reverence.  Let  us  reflect 
on  the  way  we  pray.  How  often 
do  we  hurry  into  the  Divine 
presence,  hasten  through  our  self- 
ish catalogue,  and  say  "Amen" 
with  a  sense  of  relief.  I  can 
remember  my  father  sitting  for 
five  minutes  with  the  Book  in  his 
hand,  "composing  his  mind," 
before  beginning  family  worship, 
and  I  cannot  think  that  in  his 
private  devotions  he  ever  fell  into 
unseemly  haste. 

We  have  caught  the  temper  of 
the  period — a  temper  of  unrest,  of 
216 


"Reverence. 


fever,  of  frantic  endeavor  to  be 
first,  and  to  get  on.  Automobiles 
run  over  little  children  and  infirm 
old  people,  crushing  them  under 
their  Juggernaut  wheels ;  trains 
wait  for  no  man's  leisure;  elec- 
tricity belts  the  globe — yet  still 
the  stars  keep  on  their  everlasting 
courses  and  the  God  of  nature 
holds  the  winds  in  his  fist,  and  in 
the  heaven  above  us  abides  the 
serenity  of  eternity,  where  time 
shall  be  no  more. 

When  we  stand  before  the  great 
white  throne,  when  we  bow  at 
Jesus'  feet,  shall  we  not  be  rever- 
ent then?  O  friends,  let  us  be 
reverent  now.  In  wonder,  and 
adoration,  and  awe  let  us  praise 
the  King,  whose  constant  care  is 
over  us,  whose  everlasting  arms 
217 


are  beneath  us,  whose  love  is  our 
dwelling  place.  Let  us  be  reverent 
in  the  presence  of  our  Father  in 
heaven. 

Browning,  hi  one  of  his  most 
excellent  lyrics,  speaks  of  com- 
mencing every  day's  work  with 
"bent  head  and  beseeching  hands" 
that  so  upon  it  might  descend  the 
blessing  from  above.  Is  there 
not  here  for  our  every  common 
day  and  little  task  an  example 
by  which  we  might  profit? 


218 


Talks  Between  Times. 

By  MARGARET  E.  SANGSTER. 

tamo,  15*  pages,  Cloth.    75  Cents,  Postpaid. 


tUbat  XeaDlng  papers  Sag  of  ft. 

N.  Y.  OBSERVER.— Beautiful  and  helpful  talks  from  a  gifted 
and  beloved  writer  upon  subjects  that  are  of  the  highest  concern  to 
the  best  interest  of  the  home  and  of  a  faithful  Christian  life. 

C.  E.  WORLD. —  Quiet  heart  to  heart  talks  on  homelike 
theories — a  serene  faith  is  shot  through  them  all,  and  they  are 
all  buoyant  with  good  cheer. 

OUTLOOK. — They  breathe  loving  sympathy,  practical  wisdom, 
and  religion  both  sweet  and  rational. 

CHRISTIAN  INTELLIGENCER.— A  book  by  Mrs.  Sangster  is 
always  worth  reading  and  possessing,  and  when  so  dainty  and 
attractive  in  dress  as  this,  with  its  beautiful  binding  and  typography, 
with  each  page  set  in  an  artistic  border,  it  becomes  doubly  valuable. 

LUTHERAN  OBSERVER. — Full  of  good  counsel,  spirit,  stimu- 
lus and  inspiration  to  a  life  of  faith. 

NATIONAL  ADVOCATE. — Just  the  book  to  put  into  the  hands 
of  a  young  person. 

CHRISTIAN  OBSERVER.— Sensible  and  helpful  talks  full  of 
a  beautiful  religious  spirit. 

ADVOCATE  AND  GUARDIAN.— Written  in  Mrs.  Sangster's 
best  vein;  practical,  uplifting  and  refining:  sweet  and  beautiful. 

RELIGIOUS  TELESCOPE.— The  name  of  the  gifted  author  of 
this  beautiful  volume  is  a  guarantee  of  its  excellence. 


AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY, 

NEW  YORK. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


